Jump!

Yup! Why I love to work out.

n+1

My Mom is visiting and I'm feeling a bit over extended. I wrote about my parents here. My Mom is now 3-years older, 3-years slower, and 3-years more forgetful. All things considered, she's okay at 84. The osteoporosis is very bad, but she is in a good frame of mind now. Considering it's only been since January when she lost Dad, I think she's doing really great emotionally.

Anyway, there's more to write about, but I have to get some work done now. Here are some potential things I could discuss:

Our flight back
My knee (I think getting better!)
Recovery times
My back (now in PT for it)
Breastfeeding--not me this time Go read this blog post and weigh in if you like.
Second grade
Kindergarten the second time around... and the great parents in the class!
How Three-a crashed a party
twoK's latest fashion crisis
Vampires (more on this soon--really!)

seeing pinwheels and zig zags

If you thought, as you read the blitle, it sounds like she had an aura, you'd be right. It lasted 20 minutes and wasn't too bad. I could mostly see through it. I took ibuprofen and am hoping for the best--no headache. We fly home today. I am going to go take a quick ride on the exercise bike to to some stress relief and therapy for my knee before we leave. I think exercise helps me feel better. Go endorphins.

I think, stress and dehydration are my triggers. Last night, before I went to bed, I thought, I hope I don't get a headache, I didn't drink very much water today. I should have probably gone and drank a big glass. Oh well. I haven't had an aura since end of January, I think. Go Co-Q10.

Stressors this week:
Work
Traveling
Being away from MWH!
Being away from twoK and Three-a
Being with my Mom (love her, but it is a stress!)
The numbness in my leg (I'll tell you about that later)
Flying home and landing at 11 pm. Having to drive myself, my Mom and oNe home at that hour when we're used to being fast asleep at that time.

Okay...lalalalala... trying to put myself in a happy place.

updates

(Written 9/18, but posted 9/20)

1. Crazy week. It was a four-day week for oNe and twoK as there was a teacher learning day. Having to get homework done in 4 days instead of 5 was a challenge. Now oNe and I are on the way to visit my Mom and fly my Mom back with us for a couple of weeks.

Of course, I planned this trip in July, and now, while Mom is visiting, I'll be working on a big, new thing. Besides the big new thing, we're also trying to finish up some interviews and ARGH! Busy! When I didn't want to be! Story of my life. I do think, in general, it's getting a little more under control, but it's frustrating to be busy when Mom is visiting.

2. I miss MWH, twoK, and Three-a already. The next trip to visit my Mom will bring EVERYONE I hope. I don't like being away from the fam!

3. I've been stressed this week (see #1) and that was reflected as I stood on the scale this morning. It was 1.5 pounds lower than the day before, and probably the lowest I've seen since 1991. Seriously. I don't think the 1.5 pound "loss" was real this morning, I think I was stressed and forgot to eat, but it was fun to see. I think I've really lost about 2 pounds (not including the 1.5 that was not really a loss) since January (remember, I'm the world's SLOWEST loser). When I finally get a regular strength building program going (aka lifting weights) I expect, I'll gain a pound or two, but it will be okay. It will be MUSCLE! I'll be strong. At the gym, they have replica of what 5 pounds of fat versus 5 pounds of muscle looks like. It's pretty amazing. Oh, here's a picture of the replica I found on the web.








Fat takes up more space than muscle.

4. Got the Vita-Mix! Last night, I mixed,

1 Kiwi
~4 oz of Spinach
~1/2 cup pomegranate juice
a handful of frozen strawberries (all we had)
a handful of frozen peaches (all we had)
a little apple juice to make it less thick
a banana
and the Acai (one frozen packet)

MWH and I split it. It was super yum. Next time, I'll throw in grapes and an apple and maybe I'll get brave and try blending kale.

not just knees

Today, my PT figured out what is the other thing wrong with my right knee. I thought it was my hamstrings because it hurt in the back of my knee. It turns out, it's probably my popliteus muscle and the tendon attached to it.

One web page tells me

Seated ‘figure 4’ (foot resting across opposite knee) positions will highlight the popliteus that has a tendinitis, but not necessary be positive in a muscle that is suffering increased tone.

When I do the "figure 4" position, I feel that I definitely have some tendinitis.

It seems that this issue could be related to my patellofemoral problems.

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What else? oNe started gymnastics today. On Friday, oNe and I go to visit my Mom and bring her back for a visit. Both oNe and my Mom are so excited. I am a little stressed. Bleh. I wish I didn't feel stressed about work. I guess, that's sort of par for the course. Look for big changes in my work within the next 5 years! Seriously, nothing like planning ahead, eh? I'll fill you in about that later.

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In other news, our Vita Mix arrived! I can't wait to try it out. Thursday morning, me and it!

Things

1. The girls were really fabulous yesterday (Saturday). I took them to Target and they were so good. We went to a birthday party and again, good. Super fun day with them. We had lunch at our favorite place too.

2. The knees hurt less Saturday than riday. I am pretty sure I have an issue with my right hamstring still.

3. I have about 4 hours of work to do. Ugh. MWH's brother is visiting and I've been busy with cleaning/cooking/hanging.

4. But then, Saturday night, my knee hurt quite a bit in the middle of the night. I woke up because of our cat and needing to go the bathroom. When I got back in bed, my knee was causing me pain. It wasn't bad enough pain to wake me, but once I was awake, I noticed it. I debated about taking an ibuprofen, but that involved getting out of bed, and I don't like to take ibuprofen. I haven't taken more than one or two since March.

I did a lot of stretching and more exercises for my knee... and I played at the birthday party on bouncy mats. It was probably self-inflicted, but it still hurts and if it's made progress on healing, it hasn't made much progress. It's looking better according to the PT, but maybe now is when the clock starts for healing... Now that it's finally in a better position?

Yesterday, it hurt less and I felt good about it, and today it hurts worse and I worry, but maybe it's just the stuff I did yesterday? If I'd just sat around yesterday, I'd probably be MORE worried. I think there is pain involved in healing. What I just don't know is if it's getting worse or just normal pain from using it. Obviously, I don't want pain when I use it, but maybe it's just too soon to not have pain when I use it? Sigh. I go back to the doctor in a week and 1/2. We'll see what happens between now and then.

5. We'll go play at the park with the girls later. I'll try to take it a little easy.

Worst Case Scenario

I think it's EASY to immediately go to horrible scenarios... My knee, it hurts. I probably did too much in Zumba yesterday. I think there are still issues to fix. This morning, I was kind of worried and started wondering if I should stop going to Zumba and do other things. I decided, in a sad and hasty way, that my knee would NEVER be better. In a more logical frame of mind, I don't think I should give up so easily, and I do think my knee will heal more.

In the grand scheme, something that's hard to remember, I've only been in PT for 4 weeks. The doctor thought I should take 4 weeks off of Zumba and get all healed. The PT folks thought I should keep the strength up and do light Zumba after 2 weeks of rest. Doing light Zumba didn't hurt too much, but it hurt a little. I do think my knee is making progress in the grand scheme. It hurt a little after Tuesday, but it felt pretty good on Wednesday. Now, it hurts more today after the more bouncy, intense Zumba I did yesterday. I have to keep in mind that it was the first heavy Zumba I've done in about 6-8 weeks. I am weak still.

If I think back, I think my knee is a little less sore than it was when it first got hurt. I don't think we've quite addressed all the issues and I think I might need to take Zumba a little lower for a few classes and work up a little more. We'll see how quickly the pain from yesterday's class subsides. I'm icing now to reduce inflammation. If my knee feels NORMAL tomorrow, this is really good. If it hurts but less than today, it is still really good. If it hurts worse tomorrow, then, that's not good, but I'll cross that bridge if it shows up tomorrow.

Healing takes a long time. A lot longer than doctors say. I need to be more patient (pun intended) and keep working to build strength and not freak out.

(updated to add: Today, I took pictures pointing to where it hurts. It doesn't HURT hurt, it feels "hot" inside. I've been trying to think of how to describe it and hot and a little "intense" is how I can best describe it. Yesterday, I asked her if she thought it was my meniscus and she said, no, it would hurt "HERE." Today, it is hurting where she pointed, but I don't know if that's because I am very suggestible or if it truly hurt there. I don't remember it hurting "there" on a sustained basis before. I am very suggestible.)

5:00

It's 5 pm and I'm just getting to work. I'm doing some work at home. I have to work 10 hours in the next 2 days. It's do-able, but I just need to start. I'll get 6 hours of time tomorrow before 1 pm... I'll probably get 2-3 hours tonight, and then 6 hours and I can do one more later tomorrow night. Okay. Aren't you glad I shared?

Today was extra busy because Three-a had her four-year-old check up. We got really sad news. Our pediatrician is leaving the practice. We are happy for her because she'll get to spend more time with her kids, but sad for us because we're losing a WONDERFUL doctor. I almost cried when I heard the news. Seriously. Now we have to find a new pediatrician. Sigh.

Three-a is 40 pounds and 41 inches tall. I think she's super smart, and she makes people laugh all the time. She got two shots today (polio and MMR). The doctor said she looks great. She has my ligaments.... VERY LOOSE ligaments. Her feet toe in a little, and the doctor thinks the right one is fine, but we might as well get the left one checked out as it turns in a little more readily. My best guess is that the specialist will ask her to wear "good" shoes with lots of support.

We bought her proper shoes last winter but she didn't like wearing them that much because they were slightly big. Now they fit, and I'm just going to have to require her to wear them. It's hard for me to make her wear "shoes" in the summer and not crocs because I just want to wear crocs, but crocs are bad for my feet/legs and I'm guessing since her legs are so similar to mine and her ligaments are loose, they aren't the best for her.

As much as I love crocs, I think their era may be over in our house. I think twoK can wear them some, but oNe and Three-a probably shouldn't. I'll have to watch MWH's feet too. I must give them up.

Okay, so besides the doctor's appointment, this morning was busy because, I hung with the girls. I do ALL the mommy-stuff on Thursday mornings (and Monday mornings). I take oNe to school, then come home and get twoK ready (MWH helps), and then today Three-a and I went to her doctor's appointment. Normally, she and I will get a little quality mommy and T time afer we drop twoK off, but as mentioned above, today was the doctor.

At noon, n3nny took over with Three-a and they ran some errands and I went to Zumba! I got to do it "full-on" today. I jumped very lightly. (Actually, on two songs that are tough on the knees, I took it easy, but 50 minutes of "full-on" is more than I've done in 5 weeks!)

So far, so good with my knee. After Zumba, I went to PT. The PT said it felt a teeny-eeny bit swollen, but that the kneecap is in much better position and is "gliding" better. It feels "better," but not all the way better. I am hopeful that I have learned some new strengthening exercises to help. (Four weeks ago, she had me work on loosening my IT band, and strengthen my VMO and hamstrings. Now, the last session and today, she's starting to help me build up my hip strength.)

Now I'm home and should be working, but here I am blogging. MUST GO WORK. I have 45 minutes left.

Hope you're having a great day! Zumba love to you all! (Zumba really gets the endorphins going!)

Got an email

Asking me what my favorite "boy names" are....

If we'd have had a boy, we probably would have named him after MWH and would have called him either "Cole" or "Niko" to prevent confusion between the names being the same.

We probably would have used my father's first name and MWH's dad's middle name (Joseph) as the middle name for a little male baby. We used the feminine version of my father's first name and MWH's dad's middle name for Three-a's middle name.

We never finalized "boy names" because each time, we knew we were having a girl by the ultrasound around 15-18 weeks. (With oNe, we were only 80% sure she was a girl, because her legs were crossed.)

You didn't ask, but there you go.

Green / Goals

I was taking a look at my 2009 goals the other day.... I know, I know, I had too many. Here's an update on one of them.


5. Work on being more green. (Yea, I use re-usable shopping bags, SIGG bottles (so I don't have to use plastic water bottles), a re-usable coffee cup, and do some other things (I should do a post about this) but I know I can do more. I need to think more about this. If you've made decisions about how to be more "green" what are they? Please post a comment if you have ideas!

(MWH tells me he can't believe with how "green" I am that I forget to turn off the lights all the time... I am embarrassed about this... Sigh. We have lights on timers and on motion detectors, so that helps, but still I should be more responsible--especially where we don't have times/detectors!)


First, in case you didn't know, SIGG is taking exchanges on bottles. I was VERY upset when I learned about this. They have BPA in the lining of older water bottles. They say their bottles don't leach BPA into the water, but heck, for the longest time they wouldn't admit they had BPA in their bottles, so I'm not convinced. (You can read more about the SIGG bottles here.)

I took my bottles back and our Whole Foods was nice enough to give a store credit for 7 Sigg water bottles. I bought 3 plain Stainless Steel water bottles. I'm just a little too upset about the SIGG thing to buy another SIGG bottle. We'll see if they can re-gain my trust.

Okay, now the new idea.

I eat a lot of pre-cooked frozen brown rice. It comes in a plastic bag. If I make my OWN rice, I'll be cutting down on packaging and plastic, and saving money to boot. You can buy a LOT more uncooked rice in a plastic bag than cooked rice. This is my new goal...dig out my rice steamer and start steaming my own brown rice. I'll try freezing some too and see if that works for emergencies. A little google search told me you can do it and that it tastes good.

I'm still thinking about other green things. I'd like to figure out how to not have to use the plastic containers at work. They say they are compostable, but work doesn't having composting... (Or maybe they do... Must look into that.) Someday, I'd like to start composting at home, but I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet. The girls are still little. Maybe next year.

Really?

When you order shoes from Zappos, they ask if you want to post it to your status in Facebook. Heh.... I'll share that I order shoes here, but not in Facebook. Different audiences, different audiences! I have quite a few of my professional colleagues in Facebook. I like them a lot. Some, I like so much that they come here too. But not all of them. Not all of them would care that I just ordered some new shoes.


If you care, I got both of the pairs of shoes I linked to in this post. I rarely shop so much, but I got them for my knees and my knees are worth it. I want to keep using them for jumping and dancing for a long time! I think better shoes will help. I think I have to go shopping for new Zumba shoes too.

Blend!

Spinach











+


Watermelon and ice












=


Simple, light, frothy, delicious, nutritious, and perfect for a summer morning














I just ordered a new Vita-Mix Blender. I am very excited. I have been blending all sorts of stuff in my very cheap Osterizer blender. I've had it for about four years. We use it pretty much every other day. I put whole fruit, frozen fruit, and ice in it all the time. It takes a while, and the poor motor! You can hear it strain, and sometimes you can smell it. I've been waiting for it to blow out (or up!), but thankfully it hasn't. It's hard to clean and it leaks. I think it's earned a rest. I can't wait for the new Vita-Mix!

Before the current Osterizer, we had another blender from the 1960s. It had belonged to MWH's Mom. It also blended lots of frozen fruit and made smoothies for me. (Really amazing considering it was 30 years old, and not designed for such tasks!) It was the blender I used when I was pregnant with oNe and was making a fruit smoothie every morning*. I used yogurt, berries, peaches, bananas, and a little fruit juice. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I started adding veggies to the smoothies.



One tip on the watermelon drink, use seedless watermelon. I usually make it with seedless, but on the day I took these pictures, I made it with seeded watermelon ('cause that's what I had).
Since, I knew it was okay to eat watermelon seeds, I just blended the watermelon without removing the seeds. Big mistake! The watermelon seeds added a very sand-like quality to the drink. Ugh! I ended up having to strain the little bits out. I won't do that again! Seedless, with the little white seeds is fine! Those seeds aren't gritty.


*Someone should explain to me why I was the one who was getting up to make the fruit smoothies when I was pregnant while MWH stayed in bed. Hrm. Seems wrong, doesn't it?

Is it wrong?

Is it wrong that, from a mysterious status update in Facebook, I hope a friend (recently divorced, but with a guy she thinks is "Mr. Right") is pregnant?

I have NO idea if she is or not, but her status update was, um, questionable. Since this blog is my anonymous venue, I ask, is it wrong that I hope she is? She LOVES kids. She wants them (someday). She'll be a fabulous Mom. Her kid(s) will be beautiful. She's not getting any younger (31). Since she's in my Zumba class, we'll probably know pretty quickly!

File this under how rumors start.

Also, tell me whether you hope she is or not!

oNe bat

We will have oNe bat this Halloween. oNe just confirmed that she does INDEED want to be a bat and she's not changing her mind. I just ordered this. It's the earliest I've ever ordered a costume, hopefully it won't come back to bite me. (Halloween pun intended.)

It's the weekend... (EDITED)

But it doesn't feel like it. I left work today with about 3 hours of work left to do. If I work this weekend, and get it all done, I will 1) feel better and 2) have a jump on next week.

Here's what I should do:

1. Finish editing/writing the thing for JR (estimated time 1.5-2 hours)

2. Write up notes from T/I interview today (estimated time 1-1.5 hours)

3. Send out emails to the four R__s (estimated time 1 hour)

4. Read articles for new project (estimated time 4 hours, but this is best done over multiple days, so an hour a day would be good).


Tasks 1 & 2 will get done. Task 3 isn't that hard, but I don't want to do it, so it's harder. Task 4 seems daunting, but I should start it. Who knows if I will.

I want a weekend. A whole weekend. I guess it's too much to ask. Sigh.

Updated Saturday morning... Task 2 is done! Woo! It feels good to cross it off. I'll do Number 1 tomorrow. Need to start in on #4 today.

At some point...

she's gotta snap, right? Go read the article. I'll wait.

19... Whoa.

But then, that pales in comparison to 69. Comments? Or are you all without words?

knees, shoes, and schedules

1. The knees don't hurt much (really not much at all) but they aren't letting me do all the stuff I want to do. They will get back, but it will take a while. I need to go sign up for 4 more weeks of PT. Sigh.

The injury seemed "sudden" but it wasn't. It was YEARS of my overuse of some muscles, and not others. It was also probably due to wearing crocs... I heart my crocs, but I have to get some new shoes with better arch support. (Oh darn! Heh.) I could tell you about the annoying sales man at the shoe store, but I won't because that would be negative, but he made me mad. He snubbed his nose at my crocs. He sneered at some of my questions. Not a good approach for me to want to buy shoes from you. He did know a lot about shoes, but that's no reason to make me feel like a loser. Okay... that's enough.

I think I'm going to get these shoes.

Maybe these?

2. Schedules... I'm trying to get my schedule kind of in-place. I'm going to work at work M, W and most (some) Fridays and try to not work too much on T/Th. I'll check in and do some reading (and then when we work on the new project I'll write at home on T/Th). That's the plan. In the past, plans and schedules NEVER worked out, so I gave up planning. We'll see what happens this time.

I still have to try to figure out volunteer time in the girls' classrooms. I think T/Th mornings will be my school times.