charlatan psychic

I'm a dork. I'm playing a little bit of catch-up here to get ready for a big news post. Before we left El Paso, I participated in the Bataan Memorial Death March, for the second time. I tackled the training much like my marathon training. I loaded up my small camel bak backpack and started walking. The first time I did the Bataan, I took forever and had horrid blisters. This time, I was wearing the same pair of shoes (broken in now) and had much better results. I came in at just under 8 hours, chip time (8.5 hours gun time). I only had a couple blisters, and the worst happened just in the last mile. I felt it, but could feel such fatigue in my legs that I didn't dare stop to bandage it. I am quite proud of myself this year. I felt much stronger and faster. I even ran a bit! Once you pass halfway, you start some downhill. It was easier on my legs to do a slow run on the downhill portions. Running and walking work the muscles differently, so running a bit made it easie...

The last few months of 2013 flew by. Holy crap. Next thing I new, it was Christmas, then the in-laws visited, and then it was New Year's. Now it's 2014. I did some resolutioning for the Jewish new year, and actually somewhat accomplished one. My brother and I are talking again. It's good to have him back. We keep in touch online quite well, and talk on the phone from time to time. However, I did make the mistake of taking my husband on the Tour of Homes here. It's where some senior Officers and NCOs decorate their homes and allow us to tour them. And we pay for it. Yeah. But we went, and we had fun, and J was inspired. Apparently, it's time for us to step it up a notch. So we are starting the process of cleaning out our house. We'll go through our home, a section at a time, and sort through everything we have. Clean out things we no longer need or want, reorganize what we keep. We want to minimize what is left out. That means making sure things have a pla...

It started with my lack of motivation to exercise. No excuses, I felt lazy. Then I get a text from my husband that he was hit by a car on his bike ride. He's OK, but a little beat up. He even finished the ride before coming home. I helped him clean up, bandage up, and get ready for work. I went to my Friday morning craft group to get something embroidered for a project I'm working on, and the embroidery machine somehow caught the threads it had already sewn. No going back. I might have to try appliqué, as much as I hate that stuff. I took J lunch. A high point. Remy got dropped at the groomers. Then, I sold my old Trek road bike, Rhoda. I didn't tell the new owner about her name, since he's a Master Sergeant in the Army. It didn't seem to fit him. But he's new at road biking, had a friend that's into it helping him pick the bike, and eager to ride. I think Rhoda is in good hands and will get the miles she deserves. Then I picked up Rem and he di...

*WARNING* Possible TMI: discussion of cycles and hormones. I'm experiencing my second migraine since I started taking feverfew. It started yesterday (Tuesday), but I can now look back and see that I had a side effect on monday as well. Monday I got the munchies, which I often do with migraines. I just can't seem to get enough to eat. It wasn't a huge case of munchies, but it was there. Yesterday I had a headache and noticed I was sensitive to sound. Tried Ibuprofen, but it wasn't helping. I ended up taking the tramadol in the evening and a second one before bed. Had my usual tramadol insomnia, so I was up for 2 hours in the middle of the night. This morning I was still tire, but had things to do and places to go. So I got up. Definitely not 100%. I got a latte before my early morning meeting, and had some sharp pains towards the end. I think that was stress, because as soon as I left, it was better. Kristy and I stopped by my house so I was able to get the painkill...

I admit, I've been slacking on my running. Like, a lot. But I got out with Remy on Christmas Eve and ran. We'll head out this afternoon as well. And next week, I'll start the Simple Fit program. Week will consist of 3 days of running and 3 days of strength training. At least at first. Then I'll start adding swimming and biking back in to alternate with running. But I really need to stick with a strength program. I have also started another health regime - lotion. Simple, yes? But I just now started putting lotion on my arms and legs every day, instead of just when they get so dry that they itch. What started this? Getting fed up with my ridged fingernails. The vertical ridges in my nails have just gotten worse over time. I of course did my favorite thing and researched it on teh interwebz. A couple sites suggested dehydration as a cause. Kinda makes sense. They've gotten worse since moving to this dry climate, and my cuticles have always been rather dry and cra...

J got promoted! Yay! His folks flew out for it, and yes, Rembrandt was there as well. He's going to be just as popular with this unit as he is with our old unit. The promotion was nice and simple, relaxed, and we bought the first round of drinks (and dinner for us) at the German Club afterwards. Just one round, so that no one gets drunk on our tab. It actually saved us a little money. Speaking of money, now that we've been following our budget for 2 months, we're noticing some savings. So we're going to stick with it, just as it is (tweeks when necessary), through the deployment. Even with J's pay raise. The extra money from the pay raise will be filtered into some investment plans, and we'll up our payments on J's jeep. We need to work on building our savings back up to what it used to be. J's deployment is really starting to sink in now. Thinking of things that I will be doing alone instead of with him, like Christmas. But I'm looking forward ...

So much going on right now. We went to Grandpa's funeral, and it was nice, as funeral's go. I'm glad we had that last visit to the area as a visit to Grandpa. It's going to be hard to not have him there. I didn't even log in to WW last week. I'm back up to 155. I have, however, dropped pants sizes from a 14 to about an 8. And gone down 1 bra size. I'm still in a 12/14 top. I'm pretty happy with my body right now. I'm going to keep going to the power pump class at the gym as often as I can. Won't make it this morning. I'm doing belly dance twice a week now, one of those days working on level 2 moves. I do love it. Really need to hurry up and sew my choli top and harem pants. This morning, I'm taking Duke in for some blood work. Just checking his levels, see if the anemia is getting better. I think he's doing fine. He's a little angry because he had to fast for the blood work, but not as angry as last time. Remy is exhaus...

156 today. That breaks a 2 week plateau. Just gotta keep it up over next week. I have Thanksgiving with my folks on Sunday, a book club thanksgiving on Monday, and thanksgiving again at our good friends' house on Thursday. Fortunately, most of us are watching our weight and/or healthy eaters. I can't really say what broke that 2 week plateau. I didn't really eat any differently, and didn't work out as much. I was a little more stressed this last week, though. Maybe stress is good for my weight loss. I'd rather it wasn't so I could just avoid stress. I do not handle stress well. It gives me hibernation urges - I just want to hide away from the whole world. I did pull out my pilates video on Wednesday. It's harder to do pilates when you have an energetic pup that wants all your attention. But I did it, and could really feel it in my thighs yesterday. I think I will keep that up. I do like pilates. It makes me feel pretty good. We have a ball tonight. I a...

So I'm writing. Bark For Life is finally over. It went well, but I sure don't miss the stress of planning it. I really hope someone else is interested in chairing the next one. I'll gladly help out but to go back to being in the background. That's where I'm happy. It's been so nice to get back to my lazy, nothing-to-do schedule. I do feel kind of bad sometimes, enjoying my stay-at-home lifestyle while J works his ass off. I really do like it, though. If I did find a job here, I would want it part time. It would be nice to have the extra spending cash, but I just don't know. Looking for a job here gets me depressed. I didn't realize just how busy I'd been lately until I wasn't busy anymore. I had a lunch date with my neighbor yesterday and a playdate at the dog park today. I baked banana bread this afternoon. I actually got work done on the quilt I've been sewing FOREVER. My goal is to have it at least quilted by Friday. It's ready t...