Running around...

Today was a day spent mostly on the road.

Went to my nephew's football game at 9 this morning. His coach moved his 72 pound body from safety to nose tackle today. Nose tackle? Hello, when he stood up, the other team's center towered over him by a good 18" and at least 100 pounds. Yet he managed to sneak by the guy twice, once for a solo quarterback sack that put the other team back several yards, and an assist on another tackle. His team won 20-12 with a touchdown in the last 1:15.

From there it was over to see P. I burned her some of my Paraliminals so she can help herself. We ended up talking for almost an hour, and another friend was waiting to meet her. She gave me a copy of a DVD and some hypnosis manuals to read. Something to play with on the boys at work.

The rest of the day included lunch, Whole Foods, DSW for new athletic shoes and a run to Target for long overdue necessities. Expensive day, had to be done.

I've been contemplating looking at stock pots that are deeper than my dutch oven for making my yogurt in. I looked while at Target, the ones they had seem really light. I was thinking cast iron, so I looked at Lodge. All their stuff is 4.5" deep, when I'm looking for something at least 6" deep and 10" across to fit the quart canning jars. I looked at JC Penney, QVC, Amazon, Kitchen Window and Williams-Sonoma, all no joy. Keep looking, I suppose.

Still a few things I need to get done. I need to get my hair cut, cause it's in my eyes with the helmet on. I want to get to Trader Joe's to get their barbeque sauce - it's the only one I've found so far made with sugar, not corn syrup. The tax return is going quickly, gotta play catch up.

She's alive!

Yes, I still live. Ain't been much to talk about lately.

Other than waking up at 3:30 Monday morning clearly hearing the neighbors stereo booming through my unit. Grrrrr. My gut was acting up, so I came into my office to recline in my meditation chair and see if I could go back to sleep. Put on my meditation CD and I could still hear the booms coming through.

Once I got up for the day, I ripped off an email to the association letting them know. The management company noted the infraction and told me they had notified the unit owner.

I get up at 5:30 this morning and I'm hearing the booming again. Grrr. So I throw on some clothes and go knock on the door. If the unit owner had been notified, he didn't bother to tell the renters. I told them I could hear it all the way back in my bedroom and my office, with headphones on. The noise has been bad enough that my glass shelves on the common wall have rattled and stuff has fallen off the shelves. The noise doesn't help Shad's disposition, either.

The dude I talked to apologized several times. The unit owner hadn't talked to them about the Monday incident, so they weren't aware of how loud they were being. He was abashed when I told him it was the first noise complaint I'd filed in almost 13 years of being here.

So far tonight it's been pretty quiet. I can deal with quiet quite nicely, thank you.
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Kettlebells continues. It actually does, in two weeks. Enough of us spoke up about it that a new 8 week class starts on October 7. It's during my lunch hour, so that's going to mess with my eating schedule for the day, I'll live.

I'm also going to work with the instructor on doing some functional fitness training as well. You do different things and are graded on a scale. That scale then tells you what exercises you need to do to correct the imbalances. It's only $25, so that's in the budget. Do the evaluations a month apart and see what happens.
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Other than that, not much doing besides the usual grind. Dealing with the hypoglycemia can be a bright pain, especially when people steal your food. Went to get my 4 pm yogurt yesterday and it was gone. Searched both fridges three times. Thankfully I still had some walnuts and prunes handy to keep me going until I got home.

I know when I'm getting low on blood sugar - my head gets really fuzzy and I get tired. A little bit of sugar perks me right up, so I'm sticking to my shakes and yogurt that release slowly. Still, every 2-2.5 hours I need to have something.

Now if the insulin my pancreas does produce would behave better... Meanwhile, I need to stock up on long lasting snacks.

Even though it's early, I may soon be headed for bed. I'm getting physically tired.

Zoom zoom

Zoom zoom, all over the cities. Up to Mounds View for work. South to Burnsville for my nephew's football game. South again today to Apple Valley to get my taxes done, then fly up to Mounds View to work. Chael is getting a workout lately.

Went to Burnsville on Saturday to watch my nephew's football game. Gorgeous day, so I hopped on Chael and away we went. Forgot the sunscreen, so my right shoulder is still a bit pink from too much sun. Still, his team won, so the family was happy. He almost had an interception, if he could have hung on to the ball. First game of the season, anything is possible.

Today was a long ass ride. From Plymouth to Apple Valley is almost 34 miles. I made the mistake of taking Crosstown, which meant I got to practice my clutching technique to keep him rolling despite traffic being at a near standstill in the construction zone. Made it to my tax appointment on time.

Corporate and personal taxes are done. I went to see P's part time boss C to get them done, as no one close to home had time for me. I'm getting a nice sized refund that will pay off having last year's taxes done, get me caught up on association dues, and I should be able to pay for six months dues at the wellness center at work. There might even be enough to buy a punch card for kettlebells. State will be direct deposited on Friday and federal next Friday. I like it.

The ride from Apple Valley to Mounds View... a good chunk of the time I was flying along at 75mph+. I had forgotten how fast people fly on Cedar, and 35W wasn't much better, especially when we got north of 36. That's one of those rides I'm not fond of - it takes total concentration to be riding at that speed (for me) because you have no reaction time. No fun.

It's supposed to be nice out all week, so I'll be riding all week. Taez can stay home, wait for winter.

Time to go switch clothes from the washer to the dryer, make my protein drinks for tomorrow and take a shower. Toodles.

Busy mind, busy body

Urgh. If I don't keep the body moving, the mind starts spinning and nothing moves.

I have gotten some cleaning done. The water fountain is again running in my prosperity corner, and the lamp has a new florescent bulb so that will stay on now for the next 10k hours. I have vacuumed the carpet and put down carpet protector so that my usual entrance/exit through the patio door will stay clean this winter. I've hauled recycling and garbage.

Went to the laundromat yesterday to wash two of my queen sized comforters. While there, I dumped some stuff at ARC and did a small bit of shopping for a new shirt and some lap trays. The lap trays I will spray paint gold and put them under the fountains I have to contain the water if they spill or spatter. Save the furniture.

While out, I stopped at the hardware store to get light bulbs. The one in my office blew out spectacularly Saturday night and I didn't have any spares. Turns out there was a sale and instant rebate offer on the bulbs I wanted, so I got them for 99 cents each. Sweet.

I've got yogurt on the stove, meat thawing in the fridge for lunches and supper for the week. A couple loads of laundry are in the washer, about ready to be transferred to the dryer.

And I've got a cat who's both snoopy and extremely loud. Oy.

The mind is spinning because today marks 16 years since my dad died of his second heart attack. His uncle Bill died on Monday, which was Labor Day, and dad died two days later, on my sister's birthday. Mom and I inherited both estates. Yeah rah.

I wonder what might have been, and realize that gets me nowhere but hurt. In some other timeline dad had the courage to tell me he loved me. In some other timeline the twins survived and I had older brothers to lean on and survive with.

In any other timeline I'm not nearly as alone as I am in this one.

Let the cleaning begin

So, it's Labor Day weekend, and indeed it will be a weekend of labor for me.

I'm feeling rather fed up with the state of things around here, so it's time to clean house. I'm trying to keep it to small projects - clean this corner here, decide what to do with all the extra shoes I don't wear, dust this, fix that. Things that are no more than 5' x 5' in area, or one specific piece of furniture. If I don't do it that way, I'll go into overwhelm, which I've done once this morning. If I'm going to get things done, one small piece at a time.

I'm cleaning because Dr. R worked my arms over big time. Between crocheting as much as I have, kettlebells and all the keyboarding I do at work, plus the bike, my wrists were hurting. He put the stim pad on my wrists, cranked up the stim to the point I couldn't control my hands.

He was thinking kill two birds with one stone. Get the wrist inflammation down with the stim, then have the stim arc through my shoulders so the lymph nodes were shocked open as well. My lymph has been dumping stuff out of my system under my arms, instead of pumping and dumping things into the veins like they are supposed to. This has been going on for over 6 1/2 years, and I've had it. Melia and berbercap help control it, but I need to do some major lymph drainage on myself. Perhaps some bouncing on the rebounder when I hit overwhelm - two more birds with a different stone.

Dr. R had kudos and boo's for kettlebells. From now on I need to use the dumbbells to do planks and pushups on. I had been doing them with my hands flat on the floor, which throws the wrists out of whack. Gotta be straight. He does see the change in my muscle tone all over. He can feel the difference and thinks that continuing once a week for now is a good thing.

Now the question becomes, do I go to the kettlebells studio or do I pony up the $138 to join the wellness center for six months? Using the wellness center would be cheaper, cause going to the studio would be $50 a month if I do a punch card, plus the gas to get there.

Maybe what I do is a compromise. I join the wellness center and work out on my own with the bells there. Then once a month I go to the studio as a check in, see what they have going on, any new routines or moves they have and incorporate that for the next month. Then when the class is held at the wellness center again, I take the class there.

I suppose. Lunch, then start cleaning again. The iPod is snyched, as is the Palm Pilot (I'm finding I'm starting to like Bluetooth...), got the tunes, got the time. One small step.

Yeah, yeah

I know it's been a bit since I've posted. Most days it's same stuff, different day. Get up, meditate, get ready, go to work, come home, crochet or work some more, go to bed, start all over again. Blah blah blah.

What made today different was doing two hours of chair massage. Every year when I've been at the place I'm working at, during their annual United Way campaign, I've put in that I would do chair massage as a department reward. Each person in the department gets a 5 minute chair massage and the department manager gets 10 minutes.

The department that got the bid does clinical research and works with the FDA. Just about everyone's neck and shoulders were out of whack either because they sit in cubes all day or they travel a lot. Either way, lots of people very happy to see me.

Did have one person that has a mild case of scoliosis. Told her about Quantum Touch, gave her the website on the back of my card, told her to call me if she wants to learn more.

Another was dealing with an ongoing case of swelling under her arm. I showed her how to find her master lymph nodes and how to do the lymphatic drainage to get the swelling out. She's seen doctors about it, they told her not to worry about it. @#$%!^&!! doctors.

That wore me out by noon. Then I had kettlebells tonight. He had us doing stuff to strengthen the shoulders, and mine are hurting. Then again, my shoulders are weak right now. I can do planks for 15-30 seconds, but it's my hands and shoulders that give out before the rest of me does. Even doing planks on my forearms still throws my shoulders out. Good thing I'm going to see Dr. R tomorrow night.

One good note out of class today? I actually managed, while sitting on the floor, to touch my toes going both ways. First time in 30 years I've been able to do that. That's after five classes. Standing up to touch my toes, I'm within about six inches.

There's also been some mind/body stuff going on. Realizing how hate-filled I had been, did a meditation to wash out the poison in my heart and stop it from coming back. Cognition of what I say to myself and how it affects my body. The d'oh moment when things snap into clarity.

And now if I don't head for bed, my noggin is going to snap into the keyboard. Toodles.