I don't really feel like packing!
The kids are really excited about the upcoming trip. Jack believes that Switzerland will really like his light saber and his hair. Lily told her friend today that Switzerland is a place with really good chocolate stores. I hope they don't end up disappointed.
Jack made up a new word this week -- "slurb." He initially created it to describe a strawberry coolatta from Dunkin' Donuts. He took a sip and said "This is a really tasty slurb." He expanded the definition two nights ago while scraping up the cheese sauce from his macaroni and cheese, saying "I'm getting up all this macaroni slurb." I'm really into the word myself. It just sounds cool.
I really can't put off the rest of my work any longer. Catch you on the flip side, folks.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Half Way to 5K
So...Week 5, Day 3
I ran for 20 minutes today with no walking. I feel like superwoman. If you had told me 5 weeks ago that I would run for 20 minutes and enjoy it, I would have laughed in your face. That first day of running, 30 seconds seemed like a lot! But today, I just went out and did it! And it didn't kill me, either.
I am still trying to get over the Cold of Eternity, and had to take a 4 day break between Week 5, Day 2 and the big run on Day 3. It was well worth it.
We are busy planning for our big adventure, so I can't much for now.
20 minutes! Wooo-hoooooooo!
I ran for 20 minutes today with no walking. I feel like superwoman. If you had told me 5 weeks ago that I would run for 20 minutes and enjoy it, I would have laughed in your face. That first day of running, 30 seconds seemed like a lot! But today, I just went out and did it! And it didn't kill me, either.
I am still trying to get over the Cold of Eternity, and had to take a 4 day break between Week 5, Day 2 and the big run on Day 3. It was well worth it.
We are busy planning for our big adventure, so I can't much for now.
20 minutes! Wooo-hoooooooo!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Week 4, Day 2
Great run this morning with no problems. I stupidly peeked ahead to next week and found out that on Week 5, Day 3, I have to do a 20 minute run. With no walking. I'm already dreading it, even though I suspect by the time I get to it, it will go just fine. Running 5 minutes at a stretch seemed very easy today.
In other news, Jack pooped on the potty...FINALLY. He got a "light saver" (light saber) as his reward, but was upset later in the day because he wished he had bought an "MP3-O" (C3PO) figure instead.
He also had his evaluation for speech at the preschool yesterday. We decided to have him checked out because of the squeaky voice thing and the weird way he talks. Some of it has been resolved by the acid reflux meds he's been on, but we thought it was worth having checked. He did just fine and nearly talked the ear off of the evaluator. Sadly, she was not a voice pathologist, which is what we needed for a proper evaluation. We'll have to get a referral from his ENT after we get back.
He told the evaluator we were going to Switzerland and she checked with me to see if he was telling a story! He also told her that when you're sick, you need to eat jello because it makes all the germs go away down into your stomach.
Things I learned from running today: It isn't that bad to go running when it's raining lightly. It's actually kind of nice.
In other news, Jack pooped on the potty...FINALLY. He got a "light saver" (light saber) as his reward, but was upset later in the day because he wished he had bought an "MP3-O" (C3PO) figure instead.
He also had his evaluation for speech at the preschool yesterday. We decided to have him checked out because of the squeaky voice thing and the weird way he talks. Some of it has been resolved by the acid reflux meds he's been on, but we thought it was worth having checked. He did just fine and nearly talked the ear off of the evaluator. Sadly, she was not a voice pathologist, which is what we needed for a proper evaluation. We'll have to get a referral from his ENT after we get back.
He told the evaluator we were going to Switzerland and she checked with me to see if he was telling a story! He also told her that when you're sick, you need to eat jello because it makes all the germs go away down into your stomach.
Things I learned from running today: It isn't that bad to go running when it's raining lightly. It's actually kind of nice.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Fat Girl Running
Hey everyone! I am back for now because I finally have something to say. First, I'm going to blog about my whole fitness thing because it keeps me accountable if I think people are paying attention. Second, we are going to Basel, Switzerland, and I want to keep you all in the loop with our doings while we're there! So, back to blogging for me.
For those of you not in the know, my cardiologist pronounced my peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) officially healed in April. I am not off the hook yet -- he would like to see one more normal echo before taking me off certain restrictions, but he did approve me to do more than light exercise. I will be seeing him again next year after an echo. He promised that if the echo was normal, I will not need to see him again unless I have some problem or future echos are wonky. I will have to get an annual echo for a while, though.
After discussing a few fitness plans with my cardiologist (he nixed the fitness bootcamp and anything requiring push ups or weightlifting), I settled on doing the Couch to 5K plan from the Cool Running web site. After 3 years of inactivity, doing something promising to gently take me from couch potato to 5K runner sounded pretty good. Also, it's inexpensive -- it only requires shoes and some flat running ground. So I started it up 3 weeks ago.
The first week alternated 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. That gave me about 8 minutes of actual jogging out of the 20 minutes. (I also do a 5 minute warm up walk and a 5 minute cool down walk, which brings my total exercise time up to 30 minutes). It went okay, but it was kind of hard to get into a natural run.
The second week alternated 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking. That bumped me up to about 9 minutes of running. That week was hard because I started to get shin splints and this incredible knee pain like I never had before. After a couple of days limping around in pain, Jim convinced me that it would be worthwhile to stop in at Marathon Sports and have them fit me for the right running shoes. I was skeptical, but the pain drove me to go there. It turns out that my wonderful bargain Asics from the outlets were completely wrong for my pronation problem. You see, I had read that Asics were considered the best shoe for my problem, but didn't understand that I needed to buy a specific STYLE. I just assumed they were all the same. Anyway...they fit me with some "extreme support" Asics and the difference was immediately noticeable.
The third week switched up the routine to 90 seconds jogging, 90 walking, 3 minutes jogging, 3 minutes walking (repeated twice), for a total of 9 minutes jogging. I was ridiculously scared of running for 3 minutes, but it turned out to be okay.
That bring us to today -- Week 4, Day 1: 3 minutes seconds jogging, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes jogging, 2.5 minutes walking (2 reps) for a total of 16 minutes of jogging. Yikes!! I dreaded this run, but it was also fine. My legs didn't hurt at all during or after the run, although they did feel pretty tired during the last 5 minute jog.
So, yeah, I'm running and sticking to the program. Next week, I'll be half way through. I'm actually curious to see if I can make it through the 9 week program without having to repeat a week, which is what you have to do if you find one of the workouts too tough. I thought this week would be too hard, but it wasn't, so maybe this will actually work!
P.S. I'm still knitting -- one pair of socks a month plus whatever else amuses me. I'll have to do a photo montage the next time I post.
For those of you not in the know, my cardiologist pronounced my peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) officially healed in April. I am not off the hook yet -- he would like to see one more normal echo before taking me off certain restrictions, but he did approve me to do more than light exercise. I will be seeing him again next year after an echo. He promised that if the echo was normal, I will not need to see him again unless I have some problem or future echos are wonky. I will have to get an annual echo for a while, though.
After discussing a few fitness plans with my cardiologist (he nixed the fitness bootcamp and anything requiring push ups or weightlifting), I settled on doing the Couch to 5K plan from the Cool Running web site. After 3 years of inactivity, doing something promising to gently take me from couch potato to 5K runner sounded pretty good. Also, it's inexpensive -- it only requires shoes and some flat running ground. So I started it up 3 weeks ago.
The first week alternated 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. That gave me about 8 minutes of actual jogging out of the 20 minutes. (I also do a 5 minute warm up walk and a 5 minute cool down walk, which brings my total exercise time up to 30 minutes). It went okay, but it was kind of hard to get into a natural run.
The second week alternated 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking. That bumped me up to about 9 minutes of running. That week was hard because I started to get shin splints and this incredible knee pain like I never had before. After a couple of days limping around in pain, Jim convinced me that it would be worthwhile to stop in at Marathon Sports and have them fit me for the right running shoes. I was skeptical, but the pain drove me to go there. It turns out that my wonderful bargain Asics from the outlets were completely wrong for my pronation problem. You see, I had read that Asics were considered the best shoe for my problem, but didn't understand that I needed to buy a specific STYLE. I just assumed they were all the same. Anyway...they fit me with some "extreme support" Asics and the difference was immediately noticeable.
The third week switched up the routine to 90 seconds jogging, 90 walking, 3 minutes jogging, 3 minutes walking (repeated twice), for a total of 9 minutes jogging. I was ridiculously scared of running for 3 minutes, but it turned out to be okay.
That bring us to today -- Week 4, Day 1: 3 minutes seconds jogging, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes jogging, 2.5 minutes walking (2 reps) for a total of 16 minutes of jogging. Yikes!! I dreaded this run, but it was also fine. My legs didn't hurt at all during or after the run, although they did feel pretty tired during the last 5 minute jog.
So, yeah, I'm running and sticking to the program. Next week, I'll be half way through. I'm actually curious to see if I can make it through the 9 week program without having to repeat a week, which is what you have to do if you find one of the workouts too tough. I thought this week would be too hard, but it wasn't, so maybe this will actually work!
P.S. I'm still knitting -- one pair of socks a month plus whatever else amuses me. I'll have to do a photo montage the next time I post.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
I'm BAAAAACK!
I'm not going to give some long apology for my absence from the blog. I've been busy and nothing interesting has happened to me. End of story.
I did have an incident on Friday that was a great source of amusement for my family. My mom wished she could have a picture, so I have drawn a series of diagrams to illustrate the incident.
THE STORY: Lily and Jack were dancing in the living room. Lily asked if we could play ballet school, so I said "Sure!" We stood together and I showed her all of the ballet positions and how to plie. She showed me how she twirls. Everyone was smiling and having fun, including Jack. Let me tell you, nothing is more amusing than watching Jack plie. But I digress....
It was about at that point that I said "Do you want me to show you how a real ballerina twirls?" Of course, Lily and Jack were thrilled and moved out of the way. I set myself up to do a turn on one leg as shown in Fig. A. below, and started to twirl.
Unfortunately, I haven't twirled in some time and after turning about 180 degrees, I started to tilt on my axis, much like a planet. See Fig. B. below. As shown in the diagram, once I started to tilt, I knew I was heading for disaster.
In what seemed to me like slow motion, I started to fall sideways to the floor. At the same time, I continued to turn another 180 degrees and my left arm flew out to the side and caught on a chair seat. See Fig. C. My other hand reached to the ground to try and break the fall.
As I hit the floor, my arm remained hung up on the seat of the chair. It is really hard to diagram, but I ended up on my stomach with my right arm out in front of my and my left arm caught raised up behind me on the seat of the chair. See Fig. D.
The pain was immediate and unbearable. As I lay writhing on the floor and moaning, Jack came running over and jumped on top of me, saying "Make a slide, Mommy!" Lily was laughing. I could only croak out the words "Don't touch me! Mommy's hurt!" Right about then, the phone rang. It was my mother. I told her what happened, and Jack piped up in the background "You should be more careful."
I seriously thought I would need to go to the ER, but after icing my arm for about an hour and taking Ibuprofen, everything was okay. It's pretty stiff and sore, but it only really hurts if I try to put it in the position it was in when it got caught on the chair. Since I hardly ever walk around with my arm up in the air behind my back, it barely bothers me.
Once I got out the ice pack, the kids both tried to hurt themselves and demanded ice packs for their "injuries." Lily actually purposely hit her head on the floor. Shne said "I want to be like you, Mommy!"
Needless to say, I won't be doing any fancy ballet moves in the near future...or ever again.
I did have an incident on Friday that was a great source of amusement for my family. My mom wished she could have a picture, so I have drawn a series of diagrams to illustrate the incident.
THE STORY: Lily and Jack were dancing in the living room. Lily asked if we could play ballet school, so I said "Sure!" We stood together and I showed her all of the ballet positions and how to plie. She showed me how she twirls. Everyone was smiling and having fun, including Jack. Let me tell you, nothing is more amusing than watching Jack plie. But I digress....
It was about at that point that I said "Do you want me to show you how a real ballerina twirls?" Of course, Lily and Jack were thrilled and moved out of the way. I set myself up to do a turn on one leg as shown in Fig. A. below, and started to twirl.
Unfortunately, I haven't twirled in some time and after turning about 180 degrees, I started to tilt on my axis, much like a planet. See Fig. B. below. As shown in the diagram, once I started to tilt, I knew I was heading for disaster.
In what seemed to me like slow motion, I started to fall sideways to the floor. At the same time, I continued to turn another 180 degrees and my left arm flew out to the side and caught on a chair seat. See Fig. C. My other hand reached to the ground to try and break the fall.
As I hit the floor, my arm remained hung up on the seat of the chair. It is really hard to diagram, but I ended up on my stomach with my right arm out in front of my and my left arm caught raised up behind me on the seat of the chair. See Fig. D.
The pain was immediate and unbearable. As I lay writhing on the floor and moaning, Jack came running over and jumped on top of me, saying "Make a slide, Mommy!" Lily was laughing. I could only croak out the words "Don't touch me! Mommy's hurt!" Right about then, the phone rang. It was my mother. I told her what happened, and Jack piped up in the background "You should be more careful."
I seriously thought I would need to go to the ER, but after icing my arm for about an hour and taking Ibuprofen, everything was okay. It's pretty stiff and sore, but it only really hurts if I try to put it in the position it was in when it got caught on the chair. Since I hardly ever walk around with my arm up in the air behind my back, it barely bothers me.
Once I got out the ice pack, the kids both tried to hurt themselves and demanded ice packs for their "injuries." Lily actually purposely hit her head on the floor. Shne said "I want to be like you, Mommy!"
Needless to say, I won't be doing any fancy ballet moves in the near future...or ever again.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Get Thee on the Crafty Bus!
If you're on Ravelry, check out my new group "The Crafty Bus." My knitting gal pal (I've always wanted to use that phrase) Sheila and I came up with the idea, and with a little help from the Crafty Mamas (you know who you are), we put together a list of 24 patterns for a Year of Socks. Well, to be fair, it might be more like 27 patterns, because we sometimes gave 3 suggested patterns if one of them must be purchased. Anyway, you can knit either 1 or 2 pairs of socks per month (or more, if you come up with more patterns) and bust that sock yarn stash.
Why the Crafty Bus? Sheila invented the phrase one day. If I remember correctly, she was talking about how her mother was pretty crafty, and how surprised she would be to find out that Sheila was now, as she so vividly described it, "on the Crafty Bus." I can't explain why the phrase struck me, but I've used it ever since. I've been on the crafty bus for a long, long, time. Once you get on, you never get off!
Why a Year of Socks? I am sad to admit that I have an addiction to Dream in Color Smooshy. In fact, I have enough Smooshy in my Level 1 stash right now to do the Year of Socks. I also have a lot of other sock yarn. It's soooo tempting to buy a skein because it comes with a built-in project. One skein usually equals one pair of socks. No math required, and those of you who know me know that I would move heaven and earth to avoid doing math if at all possible. The other thing about sock yarn? It comes in lots of pretty colors. Kettle dyed, hand painted, self-striping...I could go on and on. All of these things conspire against me and practically force me to buy lots of sock yarn.
Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway....
There are also a lot of free sock patterns on the Internet, and on Ravelry in particular. Like sock yarn, the variety of patterns is endless. Cables, dropped stitches, lace, unique construction, you name it. Thousands of pretty socks that take just the one skein of pretty yarn. And it's a relatively quick project once you get into the habit of knitting socks. And sock projects are very portable.
My pledge is to knit down my stash of sock yarn during the Year of Socks. I'm committing to 12 pair for sure, and if it goes well, I might push for 24. On the other hand, I have a few projects planned for 2009, including the February Lady sweater, so I'll probably wimp out and do 12. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.
Why the Crafty Bus? Sheila invented the phrase one day. If I remember correctly, she was talking about how her mother was pretty crafty, and how surprised she would be to find out that Sheila was now, as she so vividly described it, "on the Crafty Bus." I can't explain why the phrase struck me, but I've used it ever since. I've been on the crafty bus for a long, long, time. Once you get on, you never get off!
Why a Year of Socks? I am sad to admit that I have an addiction to Dream in Color Smooshy. In fact, I have enough Smooshy in my Level 1 stash right now to do the Year of Socks. I also have a lot of other sock yarn. It's soooo tempting to buy a skein because it comes with a built-in project. One skein usually equals one pair of socks. No math required, and those of you who know me know that I would move heaven and earth to avoid doing math if at all possible. The other thing about sock yarn? It comes in lots of pretty colors. Kettle dyed, hand painted, self-striping...I could go on and on. All of these things conspire against me and practically force me to buy lots of sock yarn.
Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway....
There are also a lot of free sock patterns on the Internet, and on Ravelry in particular. Like sock yarn, the variety of patterns is endless. Cables, dropped stitches, lace, unique construction, you name it. Thousands of pretty socks that take just the one skein of pretty yarn. And it's a relatively quick project once you get into the habit of knitting socks. And sock projects are very portable.
My pledge is to knit down my stash of sock yarn during the Year of Socks. I'm committing to 12 pair for sure, and if it goes well, I might push for 24. On the other hand, I have a few projects planned for 2009, including the February Lady sweater, so I'll probably wimp out and do 12. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Social Life of a 5 Year Old
At dinner tonight, we were treated to a long explanation of the kind of social interactions kindergarteners engage in. It was very enlightening, to say the least. I wish I had it on tape, because it was hilarious. Sadly, I can only paraphrase here.
You see, Lily is friends with everyone in her class, except for Joey. Joey told Lily that he didn't like her, because there was a puzzle everyone was doing and he wanted to do it. Also, did you know that Joey doesn't even like girls? He only likes boys. But the boys all think that Joey really does like girls, so when he tells them not to like girls, they just ignore him.
The good thing is that Lily's friend Alex helped her tell the teacher what Joey said, and Joey got a yellow flag. That's bad. If you're at the top of the yellow flag, you can make it back up to green, which is good. If you're at the bottom and you keep being bad, you can get to red. You know what happens if you get to red? They call the principal and you get a letter sent home to your parents and they might even make you go home! Lily wasn't sure because so far no one has gotten the red flag in her class. Lily has only gotten one yellow flag and all the rest were green because she's good at school.
Her boyfriend is Matthew. Actually she has two boyfriends, Matthew and Patrick from her old school. Actually, she has three boyfriends, Matthew, Patrick and Kevin in the third grade. Those are her boyfriends. Alex doesn't have a boyfriend right now, but tomorrow, she's going to try out Nicholas L. She already tried out Luke and Hooper and Nicholas T. but none of them wanted her, so she's just going to have to keep trying out new ones until she finds her boyfriend. She doesn't even know who her boyfriend will be yet! You get a boyfriend when you ask a boy if he wants to be your boyfriend and he says yes. Boys can ask you to be their girlfriend, too. Four different boys asked Lily to be their girlfriend, but she told them all "I already have 3 boyfriends! I can't have any more!" Matthew's other girlfriend is his sister, Ella.
On the playground, she likes to chase Kevin. If you see girls in a group, Kevin is probably with them! That's when Lily says "Kevin is in trouble!" That doesn't mean Kevin did something wrong, it just means that something bad is going to happen from those girls. Kevin has a friend named Colin and he always steals Lily's hat and calls her "chicken." She doesn't know why he calls her that. He calls Sydney, Alex, Savannah and Lily chickens. The other girls chase him, but Lily tells them to stop. Even though she tells them to stop, Colin takes her hat and calls her a chicken, too! Who knows why he does that?
You see, Lily is friends with everyone in her class, except for Joey. Joey told Lily that he didn't like her, because there was a puzzle everyone was doing and he wanted to do it. Also, did you know that Joey doesn't even like girls? He only likes boys. But the boys all think that Joey really does like girls, so when he tells them not to like girls, they just ignore him.
The good thing is that Lily's friend Alex helped her tell the teacher what Joey said, and Joey got a yellow flag. That's bad. If you're at the top of the yellow flag, you can make it back up to green, which is good. If you're at the bottom and you keep being bad, you can get to red. You know what happens if you get to red? They call the principal and you get a letter sent home to your parents and they might even make you go home! Lily wasn't sure because so far no one has gotten the red flag in her class. Lily has only gotten one yellow flag and all the rest were green because she's good at school.
Her boyfriend is Matthew. Actually she has two boyfriends, Matthew and Patrick from her old school. Actually, she has three boyfriends, Matthew, Patrick and Kevin in the third grade. Those are her boyfriends. Alex doesn't have a boyfriend right now, but tomorrow, she's going to try out Nicholas L. She already tried out Luke and Hooper and Nicholas T. but none of them wanted her, so she's just going to have to keep trying out new ones until she finds her boyfriend. She doesn't even know who her boyfriend will be yet! You get a boyfriend when you ask a boy if he wants to be your boyfriend and he says yes. Boys can ask you to be their girlfriend, too. Four different boys asked Lily to be their girlfriend, but she told them all "I already have 3 boyfriends! I can't have any more!" Matthew's other girlfriend is his sister, Ella.
On the playground, she likes to chase Kevin. If you see girls in a group, Kevin is probably with them! That's when Lily says "Kevin is in trouble!" That doesn't mean Kevin did something wrong, it just means that something bad is going to happen from those girls. Kevin has a friend named Colin and he always steals Lily's hat and calls her "chicken." She doesn't know why he calls her that. He calls Sydney, Alex, Savannah and Lily chickens. The other girls chase him, but Lily tells them to stop. Even though she tells them to stop, Colin takes her hat and calls her a chicken, too! Who knows why he does that?
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