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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 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.

Back from vacation

By DragonLady on July 9, 2013

I started this yesterday, but it just didn’t get finished.

Oh, man. What a week it was! But my kids survived the lack of internet at Granny’s house. 😉 I’m not sure I survived the flights. But I didn’t seem to get badly glutened even though I ate a small piece of Aunt Becky’s black eyed pea cornbread knowing it had wheat flour. I had to know, and it was good!

I tried to keep it on the down low that I was going home to Arkansas because there were issues I didn’t want to address. It only partially worked as they popped up in a way that I had to address them after I got back. But in a way that I’ve avoided any public meltdowns. So far.

I was supposed to run 9 miles the weekend I traveled to AR, but there was no run happening on flight day, and I wasn’t running 9 before church, and wasn’t running that evening. So I attempted it Monday morning. I made it 4.73 miles (according to MapMyRun). Around mile 4 I realized I had stopped sweating, and decided not to push it. I walked into the house and exploded in sweat. After I cooled down and cleaned up, I took the kids to Petit Jean Mountain. We did the obligatory trip to “the point”, and were going to do the Museum of Automobiles, but there was no one there but us and the kids were all “Uh, no.” So we went to the petting zoo.

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Oh hai

We went to the visitor center, and then went on to the Cedar Falls Overlook area.

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One word. Creepy.

Jamie wanted to hike down to the falls, and I was game. However, we couldn’t figure out how, and so then she decided we should go to some cave. We didn’t make it to the cave, and only made it as far as the Davies bridge on the creek above the falls. It was down there that I used what little service I had on my phone to text Karyn and let her know that having come down that trail, the Campbell Creek Trail at Raven Rock is an easy moderate trail. And we had to climb back up out of there. 1.17 miles down and back. I added that to what we walked on the other side to the overlooks, and decided 3 miles of trail on the mountain made up for the 4.2 miles I didn’t run that morning.

Cedar Falls

Davies Bridge

Tuesday, we went to the zoo. It’s a mile around the zoo, and we did enough looping and backtracking that I think I got in a couple of miles.

He likes penguins. And making that face.

I was amused by the cat sleeping sprawled out on it’s back.

I think we wandered around downtown Conway on Wednesday.

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The kids wanted to go to Toadsuck…until we got there.

Thursday was the annual family reunion for my dad’s side of the family. There was a low turnout, but I was glad to see those who were able to come. In an effort to prevent glutening, I fried chicken to take. As I was opening the package before I fried it, I thought, “Oh, man. 18 pieces was too much. I hope people eat this!” We only brought back 4 pieces.

3 of my cousins…with red solo cup…

We went by the old homeplace when we left. :sigh: It sure doesn’t look anything like it did when I lived there.

This is where the house was.

I spent Friday wrapping up remaining loose ends, and hopefully all of them for the time being. I got caught up on my reading, and my planks. But I didn’t do any planks over the weekend. I arrived to too much drama. But that is a story in itself that I started to blog, but then I saved it to drafts and decided to leave it alone for now.

First dorm at college. Short Hall

My second dorm. Denney Hall.

Common area between Short and Denney. Only dorms that still look exactly like when I went to UCA.

Old Main at UCA. It seems bigger than it was.

Brenda was on vacation at the beach when I was home so I didn’t get to see her. Which means she has to come out here to visit me. lol Anyway, when I talked to her last, she told me I should go by and see Kevin’s headstone. So I did, and probably would have melted down if Jamie hadn’t been with me.

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There are a few more photos on my Instagram.

This entry is filed under Family, Life, Maniacal Monday, Photos, Running, Video. | 4 Comments

Sometimes slacking is more rewarding

By DragonLady on April 17, 2013

I skipped a tribe run yesterday. I brought my running clothes to work to change into. I even made sure I had a yellow shirt to run in for the Boston Marathon bombing (I wore a blue shirt to work), and that my iPod was charged, and that I had my hat, and my watch. (Stop judging my sentence structure.) I only half listened to my mom on the phone while trying to invent an excuse to give to Karyn who had a good reason to skip the run. But, I couldn’t really come up with anything and just went on home resigning myself to tell the truth. I didn’t feel like running. And I am glad I didn’t.

I got to sit and listen to my daughter tell me about having to both play AND sing in front of her class, and how scared she was. She said she had to stop at one point because she was shaking so bad, shake out her hands and pick back up. I know what it’s like to stand in front of people playing and singing and shaking like a leaf the whole time. I am so proud of her for having the courage to do it in spite of her fear (which I couldn’t do at 16).

I got to spend some time with my son trying to find super glue. Ok, he was looking for it and I was just telling him where it wasn’t. And to not eat my chips. 😉

I got to sit down with the hubby for a little while after he showered, and remove 2 thorns from his thumb. Contain yourselves. Very exciting, I know. But he can’t see well enough to get them out himself, and since I wear these handy-dandy progressives, I can see well enough.

And then I sat/laid (I was going back and forth between the 2 on the bed) and read. And the book tore me down, and led to exposing an idol which led to a time of prayer of repentance, which gave me an area where I could affirm and encourage my husband…which was itself an answer to a prayer.

So, yeah, I am glad I skipped out on the run, because the time with my family was much more rewarding.

And I did 2 pushups before I went to bed, so I did do some exercise. :cheesy:

This entry is filed under Exercise, Faith, Family, Reading, Running, Semi-confessional. | 8 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.

“And where do we go from here?”

By DragonLady on March 1, 2013

I have started, and deleted this post about 3 times now. It’s gone from snarky to whiny to incoherent. As I sit here trying for the 4th time to get this written, this version may be snarky AND whiny AND incoherent. See, there are events and conversations behind it that would give it the necessary context, but I don’t want to blog about those. But there was one conversation that has kind of served as a catalyst for wanting to write about this because something was said that kind of shook me up and made me think.

At one point I said essentially that doctrinally I am still a baptist. Then later as I thought on it I thought “But culturally, I don’t think I am.” This brought up the realization that I have been a baptist my whole life – 12 years longer than I’ve been a believer. So naturally, me being me, I “have” to question whether I have picked baptist churches as an adult because I am altogether baptist or if it’s because that’s all I know. I mean, seriously, up until the past month, aside from a handful of base chapel services when I was active duty, the only non-baptist church I had ever attended was a Catholic church with my best friend in high school for a few months.

There are some things that I am sure of.

1. I don’t want my “Christian experience” to consist of just church attendance. That’s performance. I did that for my entire childhood as a deacon’s kid. I don’t want to just play the part at church services and functions. Like I said, been there done that.

2. I don’t want to go through the motions and not get out of my comfort zone. Kind of like #1, only I want to perform in a way that brings glory to God and not attention to me. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

3. I want to reach out to the lost, particularly the unchurched. You know, the ones who don’t know how to “perform” as a “good Christian” is supposed to. Rough, crude, and unpolished. The ones that folks who grew up in church and never openly rebelled/strayed don’t know how to relate to.

4. I don’t want to “get our country back to God” by means of political activism under the banner of the church. We cannot ever change a culture of any kind through politics. No law ever changed a person’s heart. Plus, the USA has never been nor will ever be the new Israel which is to say we, as a country, are NOT God’s chosen people.

So far, this seems to be kind of a ramble, but whatever. That’s what happens when I don’t fully contextualize. 😉 Where I am right now is with my family looking for a new home church. Let me tell you, when you leave a church where you love each and every person there, it is like breaking up. It’s not pleasant. It hurts. It hurts you, and it hurts them. But sometimes you have to move on for the sake of the whole family, and when your kids don’t want to go anymore, and you reach the point that it is nearly impossible to force them, it’s time to move on. Hence the dilemma. Do I continue to press for a baptist church out of tradition? And I have come to the conclusion that what I want is a church faithful to scripture, zealous for evangelism and discipleship, as focused on children and youth ministries as adult, and not afraid to open up in worship and in life (meaning, you can’t be open if you “bite and devour” aka gossip and backbite).

I think I managed to hit snarky, whiny, and incoherent. Therefore, since I have labored over this post for well over a week, I leave you with a little “Flyman.”

This entry is filed under Confessional, Faith, Family, Life, Ramble, Theological Thursday, Totally Judging, Video. | 10 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.

Tuesday randomness

By DragonLady on February 5, 2013

1. I had the flu a couple of weeks ago. The last time I remember being that sick for that long was when I was 16 and had a ruptured appendix. It was the flu my parents used to get when I was a kid that would put them each down for a week while I managed to avoid it, or just have a 24 hour episode of it. The 4th day, I stood in the shower praying for death. Then I went back to bed, had a meltdown on the hubby, started coughing, and nearly puked on him. He ordered me to stay in bed the rest of the day, and I didn’t argue. And he made me potato soup for 2 days. He also twice picked up food from La Dolce Vita for me.

2. The weekend prior to getting the flu, I made a spontaneous decision to get the kids up and go to Wilmington for the weekend. Since Karyn and I are running the Bay Six Half Marathon, and are in training for it, I had a long run that was supposed to take place that weekend. 7 miles to be precise. So I got up that Sunday morning and headed down to the fitness room in the hotel confident that I could easily do 7 treadmill miles. I did about 4.25 miles and fast walked nearly another mile in a futile attempt to get the full 7 in. However, it was at least 200 degrees in that room. Celcius. That may be an exaggeration. 😉 Later I went back down and noted that the thermostat was turned off which explained why it got so flippin’ hot in there.

3. This past weekend, Karyn and I ran a 10k. It was 17 degrees (fahrenheit) when I left my house. It was 22F when we left Karyn’s house. After the race, and after we had gone into Fayetteville to get me a vanilla spice latte from Starbucks, the temp got up to 34F. Yeah, it was cold. I hadn’t run in 2 weeks, and I was done at mile 2. I don’t know how I kept going, and I sure don’t know how I managed to run the full 6.2 miles especially going up that last hill. But I did, and Karyn got to see me have an asthma attack from the finish line through the shuttle ride back to the high school where we parked. She says I am a machine for being able to run like that. I really cannot fathom how I am able to do a long run after not running at all for 2 weeks and the previous run being a DNF. I should not be able to do it. And Anderson Creek should be renamed Anderson Hills. Just sayin’. 😉

4. The hubby and his friends finally got the roof done, and all the broken out windows have been replaced/repaired. They are nearly done with Chad’s bedroom, and are working on the suite bathroom upstairs.

5. I am almost finished with the scarf I have been knitting for Chad. He may or may not ever wear it, but it’s the same shade of blue as his beloved hoodies.

6. I am going to try crocheting some doilies after Opal said she tackled round crochet before getting squares down. And anyway, doilies are what I want to crochet anyway.

7. I need to do another food detox. :sigh: I also have to accept that I have to give up cheese. :wail: And I got glutened again, probably while I had the flu and was too sick to do the dishes resulting in cross-contamination. But, it could also be the Harris Teeter sushi. So I have to lay off of that for a while because even though I get the ones that do not contain wheat on the label, I am sure cross-contamination still occurs.

8. Jamie is taking guitar this semester, and so she demanded an acoustic that doesn’t buzz. While I was sick she talked me into giving her mine. So I went and bought a new acoustic last week, which was no easy task for me to choose. However, I picked one with a cutaway rather than the one with the better tone, and then ended up regretting my decision all the way home. But then Jamie saw the new one and wanted it, so it was a win since I got my Alvarez back from her.

9. Somehow we ended up with a house full of teenage boys Sunday. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Connor came home from church with us, and at some point Jamie was out of the house, and when she came back, Aaron and Alex were there and she started yelling, “Get out of my house!” Of course no one left. lol

10. Did not watch the Superbowl.

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Family, Hobby, Life, LinkWhoring, Ramble, Running, Training Tuesday. | 2 Comments

Welcoming in the New Year

By DragonLady on January 4, 2013

Molly told me I need to blog. Funny thing, I wrote 3 paragraphs yesterday, and deleted it because I just wasn’t really into it. I’m still not, but I will anyway. I suppose since I did an end of year post for 2012, I should do a beginning of the year post for 2013. That, of course, infers that I have resolutions, but I don’t. Goals, yes, but those started prior to the end of the year.

Goal 1: Learn to rest.

One wouldn’t think this would be difficult, but when you can’t remember how long you have been working 7 days a week, it is hard to take 1 day and not work at all. I tried last Sunday, and while it was not all that hard to stay off of email and Facebook, and 1 of the 2 times I got online was legitimate (auto insurance id cards), I had to make myself not do a load of laundry or watch a movie. I know, movies aren’t work, but there was a purpose. Part of the rest is “no screens.” But aside from having to pick up some groceries because I had no food (poor planning), and then cooking (because I had to eat), and cleaning the toilet in the master bath because it was just nasty and I couldn’t stand it, I did my best to just sit and relax. Did some reading, and attempted some crochet, but the latter was just pissing me off so I left it for another day.

Goal 2: 13 races in 2013

I saw this 13 in 2013 challenge and signed up for it because it is “easily” attainable. I mean there are 5ks all the time. I am signed up for this half-marathon, and have already said if it goes well, I want to do a full marathon.

Goal 3: Crochet

In a sense, I have already met this goal because I made an ugly dish cloth this week. The reason I call it ugly is that it was my first project so my stitching was inconsistent (and wrong) for the first few rows. Actually, I did the single stitches consistently wrong, but whatever. I started at least getting the stitch count right and the knack of the single stitch down by the last 4 rows. Below is my progress from the chain to first row of single stitch to half way to done.

photo(7)
photo(10)
photo(8) photo(9)

And really, the crochet will fall under the resting because I chill out when I am doing it. My mind doesn’t wander all around and everywhere when I have to concentrate on counting stitches and rows.

Goal 4: Pushups

This was a goal I had and failed last year. I haven’t been able to do even 1 pushup in at least 10 years. I want to be able to do at least 10 by the end of the year.

Goal 5: Make my marriage and family priority

I also started on this one before last year was over. We have issues, and those issues need to be worked on instead of ignored while focusing on other stuff. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Goal 6: Journal every day.

With the caveat not to obsess if I miss a day. But 3 days in, I have done ok with this one so far. Since there is some daily tracking involved with Goal 5 for now, it really shouldn’t be that much of a problem to do. Shouldn’t.

Goal 7: Eat healthy.

I’m already working/caving on this one, but I haven’t been to Starbucks all year. LOL!! Maybe they are done with the holiday beverages and I can leave off the pumpkin spice lattes. Yes, I know that you can actually get them year-round, but it isn’t as tempting when it’s not printed on the menu. Anyway, by healthy I mean less processed and less meats (especially red & pork), and more fruits and veggies. This was last weekend, btw…

That’s a lot of meat!

I guess that is all for now that I am not already working on and/or am willing to put out publicly. Maybe I should add blog at least once a week?

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Family, Funday Friday, Hobby, Life, LinkWhoring, Photos, Running. | 10 Comments

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.