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Archive for the Fail Category

“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

The struggle is real

By DragonLady on July 17, 2013

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, ESV)

And once again, this is where I find myself. There was some tension and stress before I went on vacation, but it didn’t really seem that big. My mom has Alzheimer’s, so I spent a lot of time with her dealing with the effects of that. And I thank God for family there who are taking care of her. Then I came home to a nightmare. In no particular order, here is what has/is happening:

1. When I got back, my husband wasn’t home, wasn’t answering his phone, and the house house was trashed like he had partied like it was 1999.

2. The electricity is out in the master bedroom/bathroom. The breaker keeps tripping. I replaced the breaker (because that was cheap & easy), but the new one tripped immediately. So there is a short, and I am slowly replacing outlets and switches before blaming the ceiling fan. Because I don’t want to deal with the ceiling fan. A spider lives in it, and we have an agreement.

3. The dishwasher was not cleaning, and I pulled out a bunch of dirty dishes in the cabinet thanks to #1. Finally determined the problem was not enough water getting into the dishwasher. I checked both ends of the intake hose, and after checking the end attached to the dishwasher itself (the other end was way easier), I flooded the kitchen floor when testing. Ah, a leak in the hose! So I went through the trouble of replacing the intake hose (and pretty sure I contracted hantavirus), only to discover it was the drain hose with a huge hole that flooded the laundry room. 2nd trip to Lowes, and rather than replace the hose, I repaired it with some handy dandy emergency hose repair tape. And I had clean dishes this morning.

4. No TP. Ok, there was one roll downstairs, and 3 squares upstairs, but still. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if I hadn’t written on the white board when I left to buy toilet paper.

5. Broken windows. One is double paned and only one pane is broken, so it’s not such a huge deal. The other is a completely broken out single pane. Yeah, I don’t know how to fix window panes. The hubster did that. But I have no qualms about throwing up a piece of plywood.

6. The morning after I got home, he finally called. Suicidal & homicidal. So I picked him up and took him to the ER at Duke since he had been seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist there and I knew he would be in the system. They locked him up in the psychiatric ward (which I am sure now has a politically correct name, but I’m old skool), and next day transferred him to an acute psychiatric and substance abuse treatment center. One of the things that contributed to his breakdown was running out of his meds. Naturally he “self medicated”, and went way overboard. As he does. And he is demanding long term treatment, but nobody will accept him with a pending court date. So now he has to get with his lawyer (somehow) and get the DWI resolved. And he wasn’t answering his phone because he destroyed it.

7. He got the truck stuck, and through the course of getting it out, got it impounded. Fortunately without another DWI or wrecking it. But it cost nearly $400 anyway between the tow and storage to get it back home.

8. He drove the daughter’s scooter across town and left it behind a friend’s house. That friend took him to another friend’s house which is where I picked him up from. No I’m not naming names. Anyway, picking up the scooter was an adventure with #7 that I will eventually blog about separately. But the hubby had someone work on the scooter so now it runs even worse than it did. :rolleye:

9. He lost his wallet. In.The.House. I still haven’t found it.

10. We have no money left. No savings. All credit cards maxed out. And the dude he worked for for 4 months still hasn’t paid him yet. Which was also a significant contribution to the breakdown. That and when he came back after the last rehab I told him not to get us back in debt again. And he can’t blame me this time.

11. The lawn mowers are at someone else’s house, and I have to retrieve them soon. Because the yard is out of control. If one friend isn’t able to bring them to the house by tomorrow, another friend is going to help me load the riding mower in the truck tomorrow after work.

(These have cropped up in the past 3 days.)

12. There is a dead mouse under my fridge stinking to high heaven and I just haven’t had the time or motivation (or stomach) to get it out.

13. Evie decided to start puking again. Ugh.

A lot on my plate? Oh yeah. More than I can handle. More than I can do. I’ve pretty much run the gamut of emotions. Fear, anger, despair. I’ve felt trapped, hopeless, and alone. It has been a constant battle with my emotions more than anything to process them, root out the lies, submit them to truth, and just do what I can a task at a time instead of looking at everything together. All together, it is so overwhelming that I end up sitting (or laying) down and playing minesweeper or whirly word much of the time while accomplishing nothing.

This is what happens when you pray “Whatever it takes.” The fact that I haven’t completely collapsed under the weight of it is testimony to the grace of God.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26, ESV)

To be continued…

This entry is filed under Confessional, Fail, Faith, Family, Life, Ramble, Rant, Trust.

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

The Ninja Challenge

By DragonLady on May 20, 2013

I started saying that minutes after registration which was back in March? Around 3:30am Saturday morning, I decided that I was NOT doing that race. From 2:30 – about 4am, I was awake trying not to puke. I might have made a huge mistake eating as much as I did the night before. But, when I picked up my race packet the night before, they were out of tshirts in my size, so I had to at least show up on site to get my tshirt. And once I was there, I thought, “What the heck. It’s only a 5k.”

Oh, my word. Not only was it an obstacle course, but it was a rough trail. I rolled my ankle shortly after starting, and rolled the other at the end of the next to last obstacle. I have to say, the obstacle course I did in basic training was harder overall, but I was also a very fit 25-year-old in basic.

That smile was all fake. Like I said the trail was rough, but the first 2 or 3 obstacles weren’t really that bad. Then we got to “Iron Mountain.” I heard some saying the 2 big ones were 6 ft and 8 ft. Pretty sure the 6 ft one was 6.5 ft. I didn’t make it, but my 2 attempts did manage to leave me pretty bruised up. I didn’t attempt the taller one, and just went on around.

I’m trying to look all cool saying “Deuces!”

I didn’t make it up this the first time, and have a scraped up left thigh to show for it. On the other side was a dumpster full of what was pretty nasty looking water by the time we (the 5th wave) went through it. You can go to Instagram and see me trying to get out of the dumpster. It was chilly. Also, here is my not-so-graceful landing:

Then James told me “This is the 1 mile mark.” That is when I dropped the f-bomb because I was already done. I didn’t do much running after that choosing to save what little energy I had left to get through the remaining obstacles. Besides, I was soaked from the waist down and running with wet shoes and socks just sucks. I failed at the “monkey bars”, and fell off the balance beams and the wall past it. I had a panic attack at the top of the rope ladder wall when I went over the top. I fell off one of the incline boards too. And then came the pond.

The muddy bank on the other side was when I rolled my other ankle.

There was only one more obstacle after that, and I didn’t even attempt it. But, I saw the guy I chatted with at Iron Mountain who was running solo because the team he was supposed to be running it with didn’t/couldn’t. So I waited on him, and was impressed that he helped the 2 people after him get up that last obstacle, and I finished with him.

I could barely get around yesterday, and I am still pretty stinking sore today. But even though I cried in the shower over the scrapes and chafing, and keep moaning about being sore and bruised up, I am totally doing the Ninja Challenge again next year!

This entry is filed under Exercise, Fail, Photos, Running, Video. | 9 Comments

Maniacal Monday #16

By DragonLady on April 1, 2013

Why does the weekend fly by so fast while the work week drags?

1. The hubby and I went to Good Friday service Friday night. Oh, man. Talk about being undone. Although I have never seen The Passion of the Christ, I have seen enough bits and pieces that I can recognize it at any point, and know that I am about to meltdown.

2. I finally had a DNR – Did Not Race. I not only registered for the 3rd annual Jelly Bean race 10k, (the 2nd annual Jelly Bean race was my first ever 5k), I also bought a finisher’s medal. With 2 weekends to get that run done, I didn’t get that run done. :sigh: No, I don’t have a good excuse/reason. Actually, I did do some running Saturday morning, but it was to the bathroom. Still paying for that Papa John’s 2 weeks ago… I was, however, highly productive around the house. And at least my first DNR was a free virtual one. Well, except for the finisher’s medal. But I think I will just alter it to say “2nd” and “2012” and attribute it to last year. And by alter I mean tape paper to make it look obvious. lol

3. I’ve cooked 2 weekends in a row. Enough that I have been hooked up with a week of meals. Which is good since as of today, we are broke until next payday. Fun times.

4. I’m going to do a detox next weekend (I finally took my new juicer out of the box after buying it a month ago), and will be giving up sugar and dairy – specifically cheese. I may expound on the why later in the week.

5. In the midst of my cleaning out of clutter Saturday morning, I happened across my taser. (I wondered where it went.) I wasn’t entirely sure it was still working when it went missing, but I went ahead and plugged it in to charge it. Sunday morning, as I was showering (which is a story in itself that I will spare most of you), I heard the hubby comment on the fact that I was charging my taser, and yes, it was plugged into one of the outlets in the bathroom. The following conversation ensued after discussing how long it had been charging (about 24 hours at that point):

J: “Well, it’s shocking me.”
M: “Did you seriously just tase yourself?!”

Sure enough, when I was done showering and opened the curtain, he was still standing there with taser in one hand and touching the contacts with the other while triggering it. And I’m thinking, “What if it had still worked?”

6. The hubby and I went on an impromptu date Sunday for lunch (because my taser didn’t work – lol). We finally decided on Red Robin because while I was open to Sonic tater tots, that would have been my lunch while he would have eaten a burger I want. So there we are at Red Robin, and our waiter decided he recognized me? From that point on, every staff that came by our table spoke primarily to me. At this point I should point out that when I am out somewhere, I really prefer to blend in to the background and not be noticed. I’ve built up this idea in my mind that I give off a vibe to that effect, but apparently I fail miserably at it. Karyn told me flat out that she has never noticed that from me, and my daughter took it a step farther and told me I shouldn’t look so approachable. Wait. What? Ok fine. I outwardly fail at my inward introversion. Probably the whole forcing myself to make eye contact and smile when I really want to scream and ball up in a corner in the fetal position. I have issues, and this wasn’t the direction I intended to take with the date. haha. Squirrel!

We also stopped by the American Tobacco Trail, and walked out about a half mile and back. It was a miserable walk because I needed to pee a little bit before we walked out, and I needed to go so bad on the walk back that I was afraid to cough or sneeze. And once we go back to the parking area and I headed into the hole-in-the-ground toilet, I couldn’t go. Ugh. I really hate that when I have to pee so bad I can’t. But eventually the dam broke, and then I was like “Am I ever going to stop?” And yes, you needed to know that.

7. I was introduced to “The Game” on Friday, and am not appreciative. Don’t ask. Don’t Google. Chad threatened to disown me over it. lol Same guy also introduced me to this:

Petra refused to watch the whole thing, but you should. Seriously.

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Fail, Family, Life, LinkWhoring, Maniacal Monday, Ramble, Running, Semi-confessional, Video.

Recap part deux

By DragonLady on March 19, 2013

I am in a much better mental state than I was yesterday so maybe I will do more of a race recap. Ok, maybe I am not in a better mental state, but I can write more about race day without being snarky and judgmental, and maybe purge some of the angst from myself so I can write about what I really want to write about.

I can’t tell you how much I love having heated seats. You really can’t beat them when you are wearing running tights and your butt is cold. This is one of the reasons I drive us to races. Karyn has fallen in love with my seats too. 🙂 But that really isn’t all that relevant. I just want to express how much I am thankful for heated seats.

I bought a parking pass when I registered, and was so glad because I wasn’t up for a shuttle to/from NetApp to the race site. I get motion sickness, and bus rides are pure torture for me. Anyway, so we head up there and I am thinking that I know what road to turn onto from Hwy 55, but I was wrong and so we had a little not so scenic side trip before I stopped and looked at the directions again. Anyway, so we get there, and the lot was nearly full, and as the guy was directing me into a slot, a car whipped in behind him and got it. It was the last slot, too. The guys manning the traffic at the street had let 2 cars into the lot more than there were slots for. These things happen, and they are just volunteers. I ain’t hatin’. Except on the person who slot blocked me. Anyway, the 2 of us extra vehicles got to park in VIP parking. “Yo, VIP!”

I actually ate some of the gummy fuel things they were giving out. I keep pretending that didn’t happen as I know they are just sweetened chemicals. So really, eating the gluteny pizza was not the only “food” fail. And then there was the stop at Starbucks afterwards. And why can’t every Starbucks make a triple venti caramel macchiato with extra caramel the same? Tasted great last week on post. Tasted like mostly espresso there. Eh, what do you do?

Did I mention I could barely walk yesterday? I’m still sore today, but mainly in my back.

I really really hate this “song” and always have, but since I referenced it…

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

Maniacal Monday #15

By DragonLady on March 11, 2013

1. I went grocery shopping Friday night. With. A. List. But I had the hubster with me so there were things picked up that were NOT on the list.

2. The hubby has been asking me to make my rice…stuff. It’s official name is broccoli casserole, and it calls for cream of ~~mushroom~~ chicken soup, most of which contains gluten and so I can’t eat it. It also calls for Cheez Whiz which I won’t eat. I substituted real butter for margarine also because I won’t eat margarine if I can at all avoid it. Anyway, so I had to make my own gluten free cream of ~~mushroom~~ chicken soup and my own cheez whiz. Oh, man, cheez whiz is much better with real cheese. 😉 Overall, the casserole tasted way better, but without the processed stuff, it needed salt, and even after adding salt, I didn’t get it salty enough. That said, I’m ok with that because I am not supposed to use a lot of salt, but when I think it needs salt, it is probably greatly lacking.

3. Petra and I went out partying Saturday night. By party I mean dinner and a movie because that’s how we roll. Anyway, we saw Oz the Great and Powerful. And Sunday night I saw it again with my kids. My kids did not provide me with quite the entertainment Petra did because they didn’t get my side commentary and quoting from The Wizard of Oz, Galaxy Quest, and The Fellowship of the Ring.

And yes, I loved it and will be getting the DVD. And need to watch The Wizard of Oz again. 🙂

I want to see this just on GP.

4. I did something Sunday that felt so rebellious and unbaptist. I took communion at a church where I am not a member (going against my closed communion upbringing), it was regular bread and not unleavened (going against the whole unleavened bread with communion “rule”), and ate the bread knowing full well it was gluteny bread. It has been at least a year since I had bread with gluten, and oh, man. It was soooo good. Just that little bitty bit was enough to reignite the flames of gluten craving. And enough to have me all bloated today. :sigh:

5. And, since Karyn went to the beach over the weekend with the extended family, I set out to do my 12 mile run alone. And oh, was it ever an epic fail. I made sure to dress appropriately for the warmth and sun, but forgot to take water with me, and started off entirely too fast. I didn’t do a full 4 miles before I got so sick that I not only stopped running, but called the hubby to come and get me. :headbang: I may or may not have cried. And I may or may not be able to run the half this weekend.

6. Sunday afternoon/evening I told the kids they had 15 minutes before we left for the theater. I then proceeded to eat one more time, and they came up to my office to rush me. Jamie picked up my acoustic and started playing, and she is really doing well with the guitar now. Then she said to me, “Give me a song to play.” So I played this:

She was like “No, that’s too much stuff to do.” I told her it was not, and to give me the guitar where I proceeded to start playing it (with great difficulty because it’s be a WHILE and I couldn’t remember the chords right away. Had it crossed my mind, I would have told her to learn this one:

As if I have ever mastered it. 😉

7. I really don’t have anything else (that is for public consumption).

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

Weekend randomness

By DragonLady on March 2, 2013

I know. I never blog on weekends. lol

So John was going to leave me a snarky comment this morning telling me to post, and discovered I have been. Apparently one of my rss feeds sporadically works (or not at all). Any of the feeds displayed on the page should work. Should. 😉 Anyway, that explains why I hardly have any visits besides Facebook and Google searches. Not that I had a large readership base to begin with. hahaha!

The half marathon is 2 weeks from tomorrow. Karyn and I ran the American Tobacco Trail today as one of our final training long runs. This was the 11 miler. First of all, I gotta say, I love the Tobacco Trail! But, I kind of rolled my ankle at about mile 6. By mile 9 I was about to die (figuratively) because my shin was cramping and my foot and ankle were screaming. Thinking it would be worse if I tried to force out the last 2 miles, I painfully walked back. I kid you not, my knees and thighs are more sore than that ankle.

This has grown on me.

This entry is filed under Exercise, Fail, Life, Ramble, Running, Video. | 4 Comments

Maniacal Monday #14

By DragonLady on February 11, 2013

1. I did the 2nd Annual Virtual Run for Sherry Saturday in conjunction with the 9 miler training run. More on that tomorrow.

2. I had an emotional meltdown on one of the school administrators last week over my daughter’s absences last semester. They are being totally supportive so I guess crying does work even if it was virtual via email. But, I made a deal with Jamie that if she will finish out the school year and comply with the attendance contract, we will start homeschooling her starting this summer since she is constantly asking to drop out. :sigh: It’s purely social, and I totally understand where she is coming from.

3. Our oven went out last weekend. Superbowl Sunday specifically. The igniter went out, but it didn’t just go out, it burned out. And after attempting to get a replacement part, and discussing the big hole burned in the bottom of the oven that is probably why the temp was never right, we opted to just buy a whole new stove. And James picked out a “fancy” one.

4. #2 above apparently ushered in the return of the migraines. The weather is not helping. :-/

5. Now that the roof is done, and all the completely busted out windows are repaired, James and Rick started working on the suite bathroom upstairs. They pulled out the outdated vanity, and pulled up the old tile, and have laid down new.

Out with the old…

…in with the new.

Plans are to repaint the avocado green tub, and to apparently replace the old plumbing fixtures with new since the cold water handle is a vice grip as the old handle stripped and the fittings are so old that they don’t make that size anymore. Fun times.

Also, they took the top off the old vanity pulled out of the bathroom, and made a cabinet in the laundry room and are going to install a sink.

6. Jamie makes me listen to Alt Nation when she is in the car with me. It’s starting to grow on me.

This entry is filed under Exercise, Fail, Family, Life, LinkWhoring, Maniacal Monday, Photos, Ramble, Running, Video.

The last Monday of 2012

By DragonLady on December 31, 2012

It’s amazing the difference having a restful Sunday makes on a Monday. I still wanted to sleep in, and wish I had taken today off instead of boxing day, but I don’t feel emotionally drained. More on that later. Seeing as how it is the last day of 2012, and a recap of the year seems to be the thing to do, here goes a quickie:

Accepted a challenge to eliminate artificial flavors/colors/preservatives from my diet and went through awful physical withdrawls. Twice.

Failed at my exercise and reading challenges…and still can’t do even one pushup.

Figured out a bunch of food sensitivities in addition to gluten.

Found a metal rooster that dwarfed Beyonce.

ROOSTER DOWN!!!!

Had surgery to remove a nasal polyp. 2nd time.

Learned that I can take Vicodin without getting sick if I take Phenargen first. The better option would still be Percocet.

Lost over 30 pounds, went down 2 trouser sizes, and 1 shirt size.

Running: First managed to run a full mile, then a 5k, then a 10k, then a half marathon, and then a Thanksgiving 8k to redeem myself from the Labor Day 8k.