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- It’s Tuesday! It’s the 12th! Yes, that means TWO posts today, you lucky readers, you. Unless you just pop in here from Keely’s for Randomness or from Chad’s for 12 or 12. Then you probably won’t even notice the other post. So forget I said that.
- Yeah, I know. I’m doing well these days if I can manage two posts a WEEK. I was stressing about it there for a while, but now I’m just letting it go. This whole spend-three-hours-at-the-gym-every-day deal is eating up the time. And I’m okay with that. Even if the antibiotics did halt my weight loss this week. Dammit.
- Today, I made this chicken. It is cooking as I type, and it. smells. glorious. It also looked quite pretty when I put it in the Crock Pot this morning. I took a picture. You have to wait ’til I post my 12 of 12 tonight to see it. I hope you can handle the suspense.
- When I was at the gym yesterday, I noticed a couple of those really buff guys in the free weight room* giving me encouraging smiles. I told my trainer that it was a nice change from other gyms I’ve been to where the encouraging smiles are lacking, and the smirks are poorly hidden. He replied, “Well, to anyone who works out regularly, it’s obvious you have great form and know what you’re doing. So that might be part of it.” I might have actually blushed, but thankfully, I was already beet-red from my workout.
- My sons are amazing me. Kalen has had four or five piano lessons, and he’s doing great. Nicolas has had three trumpet lessons and three weeks of band practices, and he’s zooming through the songs in his book. My dad, who was a trumpet player for many years, admitted to being impressed at his progress, too. I suppose there’s a reason neither of them has been interested in sports. Looks like I’m not a soccer mom — I’m a music mom! (Phew! Even with folding chairs, recital halls are much more comfortable than Seattle-rainy soccer fields.)
- Have I shared that Jason is doing this program, too? He, of course, is down nearly 20 pounds, but as my dietitian reminds me every week, I am NOT allowed to compare myself to him. Because he’s a guy. And guys, when it comes to weight loss, suck. Jason also reminded me that antibiotics and monthly visitors do not contribute to weight loss. Which also sucks, but is true. Watch out next week. I plan to rock that scale!
- Purple button. At the top. Press it! Or, if you’re Southern, mash it! Go random; you’ll never go back.
*Yes, I work out with my trainer in the free weight room. Me, an overweight, 30-something, stay-at-home mom — in the free weight room! I love it and feel so strong in there.
Things I have learned today:
When you have laryngitis, it does more harm than good to whisper. Try to talk with your voice, or don’t speak at all. The latter is preferable. My PA-C suggested a small white board. That I do not have, but I do have about three trillion (give or take a dozen) partially-used spiral notebooks. And slightly more pens. The combo works just fine.
When you have to communicate with your seven-year-old via the written word, you can’t use your usual cursive-printing-hybrid scrawl.
Or substitute ‘w/’ for ‘with.’
You can, however substitute ‘@’ for ‘at.’ Thank you, internet age.
Even though I do a large majority of my communicating via e-mail and IM, there are still some things one needs a phone for. And, if one is not connected to the Telephone Relay Service, a voice. (e.g. Elementary school Safe Arrival Lines. Oops.)
Short of having one’s mouth wired shut, it is probably impossible for an extremely verbal person to assist a ten-year-old with his homework without talking.
Friends and family are extremely helpful when they hear you croaking (literally, not euphemistically) over the phone.
Pharmacists can be very sweet and helpful when you present them with a sheet of paper that says, “Sorry, laryngitis! Do you have…”
Both seven- and ten-year-olds respond quite well to being clapped at and whistled for. This discovery, I believe, has definite training possibilities. My future daughters-in-law will thank me, don’t you think?
When you communicate with children via expression, note pad, and hand gestures, they will be tempted to respond only in nods and grunts. Hence, this page, which I’ve referred to several times this afternoon:
(The first page was quite neatly written. That went downhill, and fast.)
This morning, I greeted the world with…silence.
The sore throat I’ve had for the past three mornings has apparently progressed into something more dysphonic. (Ooh, big word! Thank you, Wikipedia.)
So, just for fun, I thought I’d keep track of the things I want to say today that can’t quite make it past my uncooperative vocal chords:
“Stop messing around and Go. Get. Dressed!”
(This was replaced by loud clapping – to get his attention, a tug on his PJs shirt, and pointing toward the bedroom.)
“Did you pack a snack?”
(Meh, if he forgot it, he forgot it. He’ll survive.)
“Absolutely amazing and astounding, something that is brought about by a miracle.”
(In answer to Nicolas’s question, “Mom, what does miraculous mean?” I just stared at him with my eyebrows raised and whispered, Unnnhhh. “Oh yeah. Sorry, Mom.”)
“Have a good day! Learn lots! Don’t bite your teacher on the leg.*”
(I blew kisses instead.)
“Why are you washing your Legos in the bathroom sink?”
(More clapping, and a whispered, “What are you doing??” Apparently, he thought wetting them would make them easier to pull apart.)
“Hello, I’d like to make an appointment to see the doctor this morning.”
(After a choke-whispered phone conversation with my sister, “Sick. No voice. Please call doctor. Make appointment,” and an email with details, my fabu little sis came through for me.)
And so to the doctor’s office I head. Will there be a Part II? We shall see…
*My Dad’s standard farewell in the mornings when we were kids. Funny how your parents creep into your lexicon as you get older, isn’t it?
- I’ve been doing this exercise:
- I don’t think anything can adequately convey how much it can hurt, but I’ll try. Derik (my trainer) said, somewhat jokingly, “Most of the women I start on this say childbirth hurt only slightly less.” Yes, well…I had a c-section. The epidural wore off in the middle of it. Okay, imagine that pain. Believe it or not, this exercise did come sort of close to that sharp, excruciating feeling the first time I did it. There were tears dripping off my face onto the gym floor. The cool thing, though? The second time I did it, a couple of days later, no problem. Sure, it was really painful, but exponentially less so than the first time. It was even less painful today (the third time). There is hope, especially since doing this on a daily basis may help relieve some – or a lot – of my knee pain.
- I am now reading The Hunger Games. Wow, it’s as fabulous as everyone says it is.
- I just got a great email. In 2005, Jason and I drove from Atlanta to St. Louis to see one of the last games at Busch Stadium, before it was torn down to build a new Busch Stadium. While there, we planted a letterbox with a very cool stamp, if I may say so. Upon arriving home, I lost the clues for the box. Oops. *Time warp to 2010, almost exactly 5 years to the week after that trip.* Someone found the box, rescued it, looked me up on letterboxing.org, and emailed me tonight. I do hope the box is intact and that we can get someone to replant it in that area. Trust me, this is very exciting news for a letterboxer.
- Kalen has a raging ear infection. It’s so bad that doctor actually recoiled from his ear when she first looked in. Apparently, both ears are fire engine red on the inside. Of course, he feels miserable, but he loves the pink amoxicillin (who doesn’t?) and the break from school to watch Star Wars movies. What is he most upset about? Missing the first Lego Engineering class after school tomorrow. (That “24 hours free of fever” rule.) I can’t say as I blame him, especially when I think about how much that class cost. Oh, and, I guess, the Legos.
- That should do for some random. Plenty more available if you click the not-so-ugly button up top!
I have been this tired, or a bit moreso, a few times in my life.
On our return from Model United Nations my Junior year in high school. We had actually gone to The Hague, worked our tails off, and had a great time. I was beyond tired when I got home.
Similarly, after a certain school trip to France. (Hey, you get lots of cool field trip opportunities when you go to high school overseas!) I believe I slept for nearly 24 hours after returning from that trip.
When I had a toddler and a baby. Who cried a lot. And didn’t sleep through the night. I was exhausted for months.
This time, the exhaustion is new and different: it is completely physical. I am, essentially, a lazy person. I am sedentary. I don’t like getting up and moving around. When I was a child, my mom had to take my books away and practically push me outside to play with other kids.
And now, here I am, going to the gym five(!) days a week. Spending up to three hours(!) there each time. Granted, a chunk of that time is taken up with walking to and from my car, showering, changing, filling ice bags and icing my knees, etc. Still. I am working out. A lot, for me. Compared to how those three hours of my day have been spent in recent years (I read a lot of blogs. I crochet or knit. I scrapbook.), this is quite the shock to my body.
I had an idea going into this experience that the workouts would bring me energy, not zap it. And I’m sure they will…eventually. For now, though, I am — and there are no other words that come close to describing it — simply exhausted.
But in a good way.
I think.
In THIS Life 