New Kitchen stuff

Getting ready to move is something I've never totally been a fan of for obvious reasons. It's a LOT of work! In order to 'trick' myself into believing this is a good process, I tell myself that it's a cleansing process, a healing process, a cleaning out of the dross, dust and stale things cluttering up my peaceful haven. It works ok, but it's still stressful. There are a lot of decisions to make for a person who is sentimental like I am. There are memories all over my home, of times, places or people who influenced me over the years. Pictures of my children and ancestors fill sections of my home along with things made for or by them. It's hard to let these things go for me. That's why moving is hard for me.
 I figured out that buying things for my new place has really helped ease the stressful feelings and create a sense of anticipation. Browsing through Ikea's website the other day, I checked the clearance section. It happened to have a series within that I had been ogling for a while but just didn't feel like investing in at the time.  Here is a link to the BYGEL series that I purchased for my new kitchen. Check out those prices!! I didn't buy the utility cart because I won't have space for it, but I just love that I'll be rid of that dirty old plastic drying rack. :-) Any suggestions for living in super small places? Please post in the comments, I'd love to read!
Here are a couple of pictures of the new place:

For reference: That stove is 22 or 24" wide, the fridge is 5' tall. 

This is the living room. My couch fits all along that whole corner by the maintenence man. Can't wait to show pictures when it's done! 

This is where the BYGEL items will go. 

It will be really cozy when I get finished! 

Birthday Visit with the girls

Today I got my hour with each of the girls. It was fantastic! I have missed them so much, and they have grown so much! I walked into the room, and I said 'Hi!' to the girls. Abi just stared at me and said to my brother, 'Uncle Dave, is that my mommy?' I wanted to smack him, but I waited and he said, 'yes' so she came running around the table and gave me a hug! Zoe followed quickly and wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed! Oh it was good to see my girls again!!
Abi said she wanted to go first, so we got into the visit room and got settled. I got spontaneous hugs, all kinds of great conversation, and she got her hair and make up done, along with two visits to the bathroom and a few new dresses. I gave them the kitchen and dollhouse I had been holding for them, with a cash register (from a friend) and a bag of candy to 'sell' to their brothers. The pictures are downloading now.
I forgot a couple of their presents at home, so I'll have to bring them by to the caseworker and let her pass them along. The girls were so excited to get more presents. Abi told me that she had a frozen cake at Bananas for her birthday this year. I told her under my breath and once out loud that she can see me any time Dave will let her. He didn't like that and said, "That's not gonna happen, don't tell her that." I wanted to scream and say, 'what, the truth?' but I held my angry tongue. It was clear he was frazzled and didn't want to be there, and everything inside me wanted to make it worse. For him. That, however, would not have been better for my girls, so I smiled and hugged and loved on them.
Pictures are loaded:
First up, we have a picture of my brother's car, parked conspicuously where it doesn't belong. The parking lot of non-handicapped spots is wide open behind it, by the way. He isn't handicapped. Nobody in the car is legally handicapped either. Besides being openly angry, I want to establish what kind of person he is in general. This does a pretty good job.

 This is my Abi when she first arrived, before getting all dolled up! She did her hair all by herself today, like she does every day. She knows how to do a pretty good ponytail and is very proud to be able to do her own hair!

She gave her fiercest grin: 

She seems to think her cheekbones aren't high enough: 

She insisted upon having pictures of her hair pretties. I explained this special bobby pin is really special and has sparklies in it: 

And the other side. Crowns in her hair! 

This one is designed to show off her pretty lipstick: 

Mommy joined in on the growl: 

Mom and daughter have really similar taste in shoes:

Sunglasses are a total winner: 

Now with a smile:

Darker shade of lipstick (don't worry, it's Vegan):

Duckface for facebook:

Fairy wings attached and a pretty fairy pose: 

We had so much fun! We ate a lemon pudding cake, had apple juice, and chocolate milk from Starbucks (they need the cups for their new kitchen). I got them all kinds of gifts and sent my brother with one of those huge Ikea bags full of kitchen utensils and dollhouse furniture. I am worried he will throw it away and tell the kids that he doesn't have room for it. He could really take a lesson from my mom at this point, which is incredibly sad. 

After doing make up and painting nails (with an herbal nail polish), we played 'darts' with velcro balls, cuddled, and played dress up. The picture above is her new dress, which has a sparkly rhinestone heart belt buckle. I guess it's time to get sewing for fall! 

Next came my time with Zoe. Zoe is a total cuddle bug, but it's hard to keep up with her energy. 

First thing she did was take off her dress. No hello, no hug, just off came the dress, ready for the new one. 

This dress/shirt I made out of a cafe curtain that was in my grandma's house. It had a hole in it as a curtain, so I figured cute little dress would work. I didn't see the kids for Christmas, so I hung on to it and they got too tall. 

Zoe pulled out the sit & spin and went 3/4 around once, then got up and was off to the next thing. 

Better picture of the dress. It has little blue cut-out details around the 'waist' (was the hem)

Big "CHEESE!" 

Showing off her pretty make up, which she put on all by herself with the exception of the eye shadow and lipstick. 

See how the corners of her mouth just barely go up? That means "I'm ready for fun!" 

There's my smiling girl! 

We were going for a growl, but it didn't quite happen.

In this one, she put on all of her birthday presents. I made leg warmers to go over her braces, bought her a sun-changer t-shirt from Moab, and a pink tutu from Denver. The yellow gloves were super soft and came from walmart at Christmas. 

She loved the supersoft gloves!

This is when she spots my necklace

But we go for sunglasses instead! She crawled right up and cuddled with me, arm around my neck, and we traded sunglasses a couple of times. 

What a wonderful time I had with my precious babies! They're getting so big! Zoe wants a necklace just like mine for Christmas. I want them back for Christmas. :-) 

Yesterday's run

All of my blog posts have been wrong. The distance was correct but the number of laps was off. The track around the park is .7 miles. That being said, it's clear that I lose track while I'm running and it all blurs together. I take this as a good thing.  
OK, now that I've cleared that up, I can move on.
Yesterday's run was similar to the previous run in distance but the feelings had changed. We started with a quick walking pace in the opposite direction of our usual. Usual meaning twice so far.
I immediately wanted to quit.
My body was protesting every single step. Menacingly. My friend is a great support and gently coaxes me without harsh rebukes. I've explained that my whining is a cry for a gentle nudge, which is all I usually need. She will offer one or two nudges. I know that she will let me quit if I insist, so the onus is on me to push myself. I like it this way. If I'm concerned about something,  knowing my tendency to be a hypochondriac, I ask if it's normal. If she says yes or has a way for me to adjust my posture to make the pain stop, I'm grateful I mentioned it. Usually this ends up looking like a change in what we are doing, I have not had to stop or seek medical attention.
Again we start with a fast walk. We go around the curve, which seems longer going this new direction. My body aches and doesn't feel good. I want to throw up and throw in the towel. What was I thinking,  picking up RUNNING at 37?? Was I put out my mind?? This is usually the age where we pick up knitting or ballroom dancing, of for us midlife crisis types, we buy something sporty or sexy. There are always the ultra tame folks who take up skydiving, spelunking, or sell everything and backpack through Africa, too, but that's never really been my thing either.
I start to jog. My friend reminds me to slow down. Often. I need to hear this, probably more often, but I'd hate to have her think I'm not listening so I focus on going slow. I'm out of breath in seconds instead of immediately, but I still feel sluggish. I push myself to push harder until my body runs out of excuses. That puts us half at around the track! What? ? I've never gone that far without stopping,  so I'm elated even though I'm gaping and red faced. We walk for a few seconds then I push myself to run again because I thought of more excised to quit. I have to say 'no' tip my body with every step. We slow to a walk and get back to running again quickly. The whole track goes like this,  with bouts of running with a little walking. My body is threatening mutiny at this point. I can hear my shins cackling with excitement over how miserable I'm going to be very soon. My bad hip threatens to knock me over into an invisible pile of dog poo that will miraculously appear as my face rapidly approaches. My lungs say it's my fault they don't work. Oh and that little cramp I keep feeling under my lowest right rib?  It mocks me.
We make it around the first time and I mention I had better run past the car so I don't give up.
It's a wonder my friend isn't bored to tears given the great shape she's in, and I'm grateful she puts up with me!
We keep going. She challenges me to make it to the public dog watering station which is about as close as Jupiter. My body is laughing at me and I'm surprised fellow park patrons aren't asking if I'm ok or calling the flight for life helicopter. Sure, we're only spitting distance from the hospital but I can't see that far anymore anyway. I push through the protest. My shins can barely take anymore,  the pain is through the roof. My mind is foggy and my mouth is dry. I'm gasping for breath and trying to slow my racing hear down.  I keep pushing, run or walk I'm going to make it around this park. Whenever I feel like I'm done, I pick a landmark and run to it.
Twice around. Once more, my friend suggests, and I say fine but we will have to walk more of it. My shins are screaming. We walk a bit, I feel slightly recovered,  so we run again. I'm positive the track has grown by 10 miles while I was around the corner. When did those hills appear??  I trudge along feeling like Snuffalupagus but I keep going. I make it to a point in the 3rd lap where we are almost done. I push to a sprint to the car. Sprinting feels amazing!!

It is not often that one can affect change with an immediate effect. Today I was given that opportunity.
I went to give an estimate to a man 25 years my senior. He was four weeks out from his third or fourth surgery this year, which had followed on the heels of an elbow, shoulder and knee surgery, also in the past year. When I arrived at his house, he was in tears because of the pain. He said the pain medications made him angry, that he felt he wasn't in control of his own emotions while taking them, so he had thrown them out. While he was in the recovery center, his teenage children moved in with their mother, an alcoholic from whom he had been divorced 10 years. Because of the woman's alcoholism and reckless lifestyle, the court awarded custody of the children to him with monthly visitation to the mother if the children desired. He encouraged the children to visit. When he arrived home after his surgery, he found his home empty with a note from the children stating they were tired of chores and rules. He sent them a letter saying that they could come home any time, they could have any of the belongings they desired, that he always loved them and that he was sorry for being angry with them. He said that he stopped taking the medications that made him angry, and he was always thinking of them. He cried while he spoke. The pain was beyond fathomable. The surgeons and doctors were astounded to see him upright at all. He had lost 2 discs and all the cartilage between them. His nerves had been pinched between the vertebrae, and he had been unable to stop the constant stabbing pains up and down his legs, in his feet and toes, and in his back. The surgeons encouraged him to continue with the meds, especially through this period of mourning. For two hours, he poured out his heart, repeatedly begging the universe for some kind of sense to be made of this. The loss of his children was overwhelming. He was completely wrapped up in the thoughts of despair.
In watching this man suffer like this, I was of two minds. The first was to exclaim that he ought to snap out of it. Quickly I dismissed this thought as callous because, in a truly connected world where we, as humans, act with humanity befitting our species, we would express emotions as they occur, especially the vulnerability of mourning. He was mourning, and how inhumane it would be to quench that. The second thought was to offer the things I had so recently learned, few as they are, new as they are, to the suffering being in front of me. What I saw when I looked at him was myself a mere two years ago. It wasn't long ago that I was in a similar position, albeit without the surgical inhibitions. My children gone, I was alone. I was in despair. I felt like it would be better to be dead. I wished I was dead. I felt the most horrible feelings about everyone involved, wanting revenge, wanting healing, wanting my children back no matter the cost. I spent many months in tears, not knowing what direction I was facing, not knowing which way to turn, or what to do. The next step wasn't appearing. The next step seemed to be thousands of miles away. Breathing was unfathomable. Impossible. Overwhelming. Drowning.  I know where this man is standing. I know the hell he is going through. I feel his pain acutely. He is a mirror of myself two years ago. I see myself in the questioning. How could they betray me after all I've done for them? How could they? How could they? HOW COULD THEY?? I have given my life over to the for nearly 20 years and this is the gratitude? This is how they repay me? This is the love I'm supposed to receive? Is this how families treat each other? The cowardice, the betrayal, the ultimate hatred they must feel towards me to conceive of such plots!
The mirror was more evident the longer he spoke. I realized that in the midst of mourning, one tends to go over the same thing over and over. Ruminate. We do this, psychologically speaking, in order to make sense of things. Children will reenact a horrific event to the chagrin of their parents, teachers and therapists, in order to make sense of that event, or desensitize themselves to it. They will often change the ending or details within the event to reconcile it to their typical belief systems. For example, a child who witnesses a violent event will re-enact the event but will stand up for themselves in the re-enactment, or the ending will change with a rescuer. With adults, and many children, they will defer responsibility to others and attempt to present themselves as helpless in the event in order to justify their actions or inactions. We often prefer to not be accountable because we think it won't hurt as much. The fact is that it hurts more, and longer. The pain doesn't go away, and it doesn't get easier to bear when one changes the events to suit their mentality. The only way to conquer the set back is to step forward. The best way to step forward is to look at everything from every angle, albeit briefly. Ask yourself why. Why would the circumstances turn out this way? What would cause the people in my life to act thusly? Would they really be acting to hurt me? Or would they be coming from a place of pain themselves, or perhaps even a place of not knowing what was right, so they act in accordance with what they know, which might be limited? Walk in their shoes, get their perspective. Once you know why a person acts the way they do, it makes it a lot harder to get stuck in the anger and grief. It gets easier to take that step forward.
So back to today. I got to glimpse into the mirror of my soul when I saw a man suffering with the grief of losing his children. So open and vulnerable was he that I was impressed and compelled to listen. he repeated his stories several times in the two hours, but I finally began to ask him questions about his situation and offer feedback.
First, he felt so guilty about feeling bad, about losing his kids, about having surgery, about crying. I offered reassurances about his tears, saying it's ok to cry, how much more would we like to have connections, but he has been pushing people away, insisting upon always offering service but refusing to take anything in return. People who love you don't want tit-for-tat kindness, they want connection. He consistently saw things only from a negative perspective. He wouldn't recognize that he was breathing, walking, talking, capable of thought. He didn't want to see anything positive about his situation because the negative felt more comfortable, like he deserved it. It's his time, his chance, to make changes, to improve himself. I explained that his kids will come back. They always do. It may be in 10 years, but what kind of man will he be? Will he be the kind of man they want to come back to, or the same, stubborn, strict, man who demands having what they ran from?
My job as a woman right now is to improve myself so that when my children come back, I will be a mother worthy of them. I will be capable of guiding them. Most of all, I will be capable of listening to them and loving them. I may have a year, I may have ten. The people who wronged me will dig their own holes, and knowing them, jump into it. I don't have to do anything except improve myself.

How it feels to run Day 2

Stats:
Date: 7/18/2014
Circuit: 1.2 miles
Distance: 2.4 miles
How I feel: like I want to die (downgraded from Wednesday)
Time: 15 minutes per mile.

     I arrive at the park at 6:31 am.
     My friend is already there.
    The sun is peeking up, the weather is beautiful, it's a great morning for a picnic.  I'm feeling like I'd prefer a picnic given the trauma I put my body through and have been suffering with since the last 'run'.     The past 2 days have been spent almost exclusively in a bathtub full of epsom salt with a drizzle of water so I can officially call it a 'bath.' I leave the water in there whenever I get out to go accomplish anything and get back in when I'm finished. I answer my email in there. I watch a movie. Oh, allow me to define 'accomplish anything:' This means I manage to walk to my room. Get down the stairs to eat and back up to sleep or get back into the bathtub. I occasionally add more hot water and epsom salt but the room temperature water doesn't bother me for once. I don't feel relief necessarily, but someone told me it would help so I do it anyway and want to believe it.
     The muscles I've worked include everything from my rib cage down to the tips of my toes, and I do mean the tips of my toes because even those hurt. Every muscle between every bone in both feet feels like it's been brushed with steel wool and tenderized with a hammer. My ankles have a renewed hatred for movement. My calves apparently have muscles between the bones and all around them too. My knee pain is nearly non existent, thanks to therapy and a lack of bending, which is excellent, but they're pretty stiff. Only when I want to bend them do they hurt, and the pain is down to about a 4. Running has aligned my spine and neck and they no longer hurt. My hip hurts a lot, it feels like I have broken glass in the joint, but fortunately it only hurts while I'm moving, and since I lean towards lazy that isn't as much as it could.
     Running day (today) comes and I am still incredibly sore, but I don't feel like I want to die. We start off with a fast walk, 2 steps per second. Knees up, back straight, shoulders back. We walk for a couple of minutes, and then start to jog. We are keeping the pace a LOT slower today. I am working to train my body that it's ok to go slower than I walk. My shins immediately scream at me, and the pain jolts to about an 8 instantly. If it didn't diminish almost as quickly when I stop, I would have sought medical attention. We walk, jog, walk, jog, repeating the 30 second stints. I feel exhausted much sooner than the last time, but my ability to not fall over is up. By about the halfway mark of the first time around, I don't want to do anymore. I'm ready to go home for that nap and cookie. My friend is encouraging me by telling me I'm doing great. It works, I don't respond well to drill sergeant style 'you suck and you can't do this' motivation. One of our discussions between inhales is about why I seem to feel like there's a difference between 'running' a 5k and 'participating' in one. My feeling is that it's a distinction to create motivation for me. This time around I may only 'participate' in a 5k, but by the next time I will 'run' the whole thing. I would like to eventually running to create a sense of thought clarity, instead of the current state of mind when I run which is very much like a neanderthal, 'step. breathe. step. breathe. step. breathe. step. breathe. step.'
    We make it one time around more slowly, but more steadily. About 15 minutes. My friend is really working with me on pace. We practice running on the grass. This takes a great deal more focus for me as the grass is long and the ground is fraught with stinky land mines, dangerous sinkholes and massive caverns. I discover that there is no way I can run the whole two miles on my toes, especially not with the unevenness of the grass and my weak ankles added to the aches I'm still vocally suffering with. They feel much stronger already. At this point of the evening, the muscle soreness is nearly unbearable, but I'm not doing anything active until Monday besides pilates so I'll keep my whining to myself until some poor unsuspecting polite person asks how I'm feeling today. Then I'll unload with a pitiful tale of woe.
    Back to the run. We make it around the first time, with the same push at the end to run for the 3 full minutes around the bend. Once we make it around, back to the car, I start vocalizing my little goals.
I'm ready to stop. (inhale) So lets push to pass the bathrooms.
I'm feeling (inhale, which is more like a gasp) like I (gasp) can't (gasp) so lets (gasp) shoot for the (gasp) patio
I feel done (gasp) so lets go to the box (gasp)
     We make it to another bench, for a total of approximately 6 minutes of slow motion, painful-to-watch running, then walk fast. My face is beet red. I'm GASPING for breath, my lungs hurt, and so does everything else. It sounds like horse hooves clopping on the ground when I run, but my friend's dainty feet barely make a whisper. I'm jealous.
     We talk about distractions. The distraction of the weather doesn't work, it makes me want to lie in the grass and enjoy watching the clouds roll by. What works for me is the increased health, smaller saddle bags, smaller spare tire, arms that don't flap in the breeze when I wave, and I'm hoping that other parts of me shrink as well. I am motivated by greater health. The possibility of living without medications intrigues me. No diabetes, heart disease, or other obesity related illnesses that my family is plagued with. More energy.  Being able to eat more than a tic-tac without bloating up like a puffer fish. The possibility of looking amazing in a strapless dress also intrigues me since I have never worn one.
That's what makes me run. The quality of life I hope to enjoy.
     We make it with small walking intervals all the way to the last curve again, the one where I push through to run for 3 whole minutes. It could be 1 minute and I just don't have any concept of time, but it sure feels like an hour. I run at an exceedingly slow pace, frustrated at my lack of speed, and my friend catches me rolling my eyes and says, 'what's that about?'
     I want to be done, I want to be as healthy as my brain thinks I am.
     We laugh and push through. It's all I can do to make it. She puts up her hand with praises and I can see nothing else but the goal of reaching up and slapping the hand in a celebratory gesture. The rest of the world is black spots while I breathe deeply to catch my breath. I would feel like a real idiot if I miss.  I don't miss. I doubled my distance.
Now that most of the day is gone, my ribs ache, and every muscle in my legs and feet ache. My appetite is up for carbs but I eat steak that I've been marinating all day first so I don't load up on junk food. When I feel full, I know it's too late, but the steak is tasty so I mindlessly eat more of it until the signal reaches my brain. It hurts to walk but I feel warm, like my blood is pumping through every extremity. My head is clear and I'm accomplishing more today.

How it feels to run (if you're not a runner) Day 1.

Stats:
Park track: 1.2 miles all the way around.
Date: 7/16/2014
Distance: 1.2 miles
Time: 11 minutes and a few seconds.
How do I feel at the end: I want to die, but I'm too tired to figure out how.

I want to share with you the experience of running from a perspective of never having been active before. I never ran in high school (I walked the mile), college (no activity at all) and all during having children, the most extensive activity was either walking or Pilates, which consists mostly of lying on the floor and calisthenics. I don't hike, I only bike on flat or mostly flat surfaces and only a couple of miles at a time, but usually on the hardest gear so I won't have to move much. No cardio. Ever. I'm the kind of girl who hates sweating. It's icky and sticky and makes me feel uncomfortable to do the things that make me sweaty. I clean houses for work and that is about as active as I like to get.
From  my last post, you know now that I have extremely flexible ligaments and little muscle tone. This makes a lot of things difficult and several more rather amusing. Something else you should know is that I have an average-to-high pain tolerance and usually live my life in absolutely NO pain because it's uncomfortable. When I'm in any pain, I try to fix it immediately. I'll start with a short list of the 'ailments' (or excuses) that I was feeling the day I decided to start running on a pain scale of 1-10 (10 being I require hospitalization and a Morphine drip, 1 being I have absolutely NO pain at all). This is before I ever ran a step:
Bad kidney (doesn't bother me anymore really)
Bad knees - 7
Bad hip - after walking about 15 minutes, 8
flimsy ankles - 2
general fatigue and worn out feeling - 4
back pain - 3
ribs out of place 5
neck out of place 6
I'm also hypoglycemic and have a mild heart murmur/irregular heart beat (two Dr's gave 2 opinions)

   So that's what I started with on Tuesday the 15th of July, 2014. For me that's a lot of ailments. If you add to that all of my preconceived notions of ailments, the list goes on, but those are just me being a hypochondriac (no really it's legit). These are the documented ailments.
   I woke up early on Wednesday, 5:30 am. I laid in bed debating which excuse could get me out of the day without too much reprisal, and then rolled out of bed anyway. I took care of my morningly routine and headed out the door at 6:15.
  I know that if I eat before I exercise, I'm gonna be sick. Ergo, breakfast was skipped. When I get a little farther along, it will be necessary to overcome this.
    I got to the park at 6:25 and took the opportunity to check my email and facebook (imagine that, no activity and only junk mail). Deleted junk mail. My marathon buddy pulled up and I applied a generous coating of Terra Shield essential oil to avoid getting eaten alive by the pre-dawn mosquitos. It works great against mosquitos, but not those nasty flying teeth gnats. I'll have to find something else for those.     My friend got the dogs on a leash and we we chatted a bit about expectations then we were off!
    Within seconds of starting, a shooting pain stabbed through my right foot and ankle and I felt like falling to the ground for a good cry. I pushed through it because I know a stronger ankle will fix that.
    The pain went away about 20 steps later. At that point, I was already out of breath. Run on your toes, she says, it is better for shock absorption. Keep the shoulders back, head high, on the toes, slow down.
     My mind is in shape, what's wrong with my body?? Why am I panting? I can see the goal, why am I not there yet? Oh ya, because I've spent nearly 37 years neglecting and abusing the poor thing. I keep going. My lungs hurt!!
   I ask my friend, what is a normal level of pain to be experiencing? I describe the pain. She tells me that my pains and aches are normal and they'll go away if I keep running. Ok. I'll be fine. She tells me I'm doing great and I believe her.
    A few seconds later, it's time to walk, so we walk fast, knees up. The knees up part is as hard as the running!! I am nearly recovered. Nearly recovered means that I've caught my breath and I don't see black spots, but my heart rate is still slightly elevated. I do this by taking deep breaths more slowly than I feel comfortable doing. I inhale and exhale slowly until I can inhale for 4 steps, exhale for 4 steps. My body wants in-out every step. I am walking at approximately two steps per second. Right about now, I am aching with thirst and want a nap.
    We run again. Slow down, knees up, on your toes as much as possible she says. I'm doing great she exclaims. The dogs are busied and she tells me she will catch up. I continue to jog at a mentally excruciating pace, but it's more than my body wants. I make it all the way around the curve before walking again, about 3 minutes. I walk for 1 minute. She catches up, we jog again. I am ready to lie down and get a crane to carry me back to the car.
    I keep going too fast, so she reminds me of a slower pace and tells me it's better on my body to start slow until I can run the whole distance.
    This is where I suddenly don't feel pain anymore, at .8 of 1 mile. We continue to jog and, while I'm exhausted, it feels like I can do it if I push. Like giving birth or eating a sandwich, I realize I'm nearly done and quitting now is going to leave me feeling dissatisfied with the experience. We nearly make it back to the car, and I opt to push and run the remainder, about 3 minutes. The whole time around is 1.2 miles. I am disappointed mentally that I couldn't sprout wings and just fly, but my body is grateful we've stopped. My face is beet red, I'm sweating (ew) and I'd like a nap and a cookie please and thank you. I never knew I had stuff in my lungs to hack up, but (surprise!) I do so now. We stretch, I catch my breath and know this will hurt later but I feel really good that I 'ran' a mile. It took 11 minutes and change, but I feel like I can do this!

Running

With all of the mental and emotional changes I've consented to making over the past two years, it only seems logical that I would want to change something about the physical as well. Over the years I've made half hearted attempts at "getting into shape" or "eating healthy" with the same results: I don't do it consistently so "it doesn't work." I'm not terribly overweight, about 30-50 pounds at any given moment. I hear that's the danger zone for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and a host of other ailments. Given my love of all good food, this is a problem. Of course I also hear that wearing a bra causes cancer now so looks like I'm gonna die from my wicked vices. Add to all of this that I have a host of joint problems from being too flexible and not having enough muscle tone, that I have a sweet tooth, and a vast propensity towards sitting and knitting, and you have a hurricane of potential weight gain. With the hysterectomy and oophorectomy looming on the horizon, I've not heard any great things about health in the twilight of my life (aka Menopause) so I'm worried that if I don't lose the weight now, I never will. Enter "THE CHALLENGES!!!"
     I began the first challenge about two months ago with a girlfriend who had made a commitment to do a work out a day for 10 weeks. We found one we liked (Sean T's T25) that was quick enough that we could squeeze one in every day. Shortly thereafter I began having severe knee problems and had to work out a lot less often than every day. Try once a week, if I could manage to bend the knee. There was something 'wrong' with my knee that was new and frustrating. I couldn't bend it. If you know me, you know how utterly flexible I am. Not being able to bend my knee one of the three directions it goes is incredibly frustrating and affects everything I do in my life. No bending, kneeling, easing into a chair.
     No stair climbing, squats, lunges, jumping jacks, bike riding, walking running. No getting down on the floor with an expectation of getting up again. It was a very sudden change from feeling flexible to feeling old. I console myself with cookies.
     I start therapy and I can work out twice a week if I go to 2-4 therapy sessions. The terms 'Meniscus' and 'torn' and 'surgery' are thrown around a lot and I get scared. Orthobionomy, chiropractic, and Bowen therapy were all not enough. Given how expensive that gets, I opted to skip working out as often.  This went on for about 2 months. I was really getting scared. I console myself with pasta and ice cream. Often.
     I knew I could fix my knee, I just didn't know how.
      Driving through a Starbucks one morning on a whim (consoling myself), the barista happens to be talking with other baristas about exercise, and the conversation gets going about how she's in school to be a kinesiologist (physical therapist in my mind). I ask her what she would do for herself if she felt knee pain, and she said to look up VMO. I do, pick a couple of exercises and within a day I feel tons better. Not 50% yet, but there's a lot of improvement. I console myself with a protein drink and a work-out every other day. A lot of pain, but not as bad as it was.
     Off I went to try something new to see if I could get my knee back without surgery. Enter active release Chiropractic. I go to see this new guy for whom several of my colleagues have given excellent testimonials, thinking it's worth a shot. I get my adjustment and he gives me a few exercises to do at home, more than the Google version and right at my level. Two days in and my knee is at 70%.
     So today (July 15) I decided to run a 5k with a couple of girlfriends. One girlfriend is training to run a marathon in March and I've gone with her to train before, albeit on my bike while she runs. Little side note about biking next to a runner: It takes significantly less effort to ride a bike than it does to run and hurts different body parts. I would say that I can bike 7-10 miles for every one that I run/jog/crawl.
    The very next morning, marathon girl and I get up extra early and run around the park. NOTE: I would NOT have done this on my own. Any excuse to get out of it, I would have taken. Oh, my period started, the sun isn't up yet, the sun is up, the sun is too high, there's a bug on my windshield... You name it, I would have totally backed out if I thought I could get away with it. I had a host of excuses ready to go in my arsenal. Marathon girl is really great for not giving me boot-camp style encouragement though, and I crave being physically fit without feeling bad about myself as a person, so I dragged myself out of bed and got to the park, still thinking of excuses along the way. Stay tuned for the next blog to see how it went!!