Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Whimsical Wednesday, aka What I've Been Doing Since Obviously I Haven't Been Here

1.  Hanging with my momma.  We ate chinese food, we went to bed at absurdly early hours, we had breakfast with Julie, we bought more plants.  We did something about which I am forbidden, on pain of death, to write about here.  Mom is NO fun :(  But I did tell Julie and she cracked up.  We think our moms should meet. 

2.  We also saw Huey Lewis and da News!  The zoo was packed and the weather was hot.  I think they oversold the show.  The guy who opened was kinda bluesy and while the music was decent it was putting us to sleep as he played about a 45 minute set.  Huey and the band still sound great but half of their 10-12 song set list was from their new album Soulsville.  Which again, good music but not quite what I wanted.  And they had two women in their band.  Women!  Sacrilege!!  Huey is all about the boys in the band.  But then..... Chris Hayes played the encore!!!  Wait, that's not enough exclamation points:  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  If you are a hard core Huey fan like me, then this would also be a big deal to you.  For those who aren't, Chris Hayes is the band's original guitarist.  Not only is he a great musician, he also wrote or co-wrote many of the band's hits.  He left around 2004 to focus on his family and the band's sound hasn't been quite right (to me) since he left.  It's about 95% of the way there, but just a little off.  So I practically hyperventilated when they announced Chris was there.  I did get one good picture of the band on stage (we were waaay in the "I will crush your head" back of the audience) that I will post later.

3.  I also ran.  We did eleven of our planned 12 miles on Saturday.  I was not feeling it, and neither was Julie, so we cut it short.  Later I figured out that my sicky bug is back. 

4.  I figured this out when I fell asleep on my couch after my mom left Monday morning and slept nearly nine hours on my day off, this after I'd already gotten at least nine hours of sleep in already.  I've mentioned this before:  I NEVER sleep on the couch, unless I am sick.  I know a lot of people who nod off while watching whatever, but I just do not.  I also slept in until 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday, getting up not long before my mom arrived.  I still feel like I could sleep a week, plus I'm "ahem'ing" so much from the frog in my throat that everyone thinks I'm trying to interrupt them all the time. 

5.  I saw a coyote Tuesday morning, just around the corner from my house as I headed in to work.  And not a roadkill coyote.  An "excuse me, have you seen any cats or perhaps small dogs outside" coyote.  And granted, I live in the suburbs and Portland has a lot of green space but it's still rather urban where I am.  It was a surprising encounter, and I was glad I was in my car when it happened.  We ran this morning and noticed every rustle of the bushes around us, particularly as we walked past the little wilderness park at the end of my street. 

6.  Yoga and I continue to have an uneasy relationship.  Everyone says that it will help strengthen my back to continue with it, but it's tough to go do something you know will cause serious pain.  Last night through many of the positions my limbs were twitching uncontrollably as my back spasmed.  I almost couldn't get into my car because of a back spasm, and I couldn't get back out either.  Then some of the yoga positions that don't bother my back I can't do because I've got ten pounds of breastage.  Like cobra?  Ahahahahahahahahaha!  Not going to happen.  Not without a pneumatic lift.  Do they make a bra like that?

7.  It is supposed to be back up to almost 90 for the women's half marathon this weekend.  Yippee. 

8.  I've gotten hooked on a show that is actually no longer on the air but runs in syndication:  The Unit.  Ever see it?  It is a fictionalized account of a military group like Delta Force and their families.  Absolutely fascinating.  And the men in it are hot.  And there's only so much Law & Order a girl can watch.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Thirteen Things Thursday

1.  I swear 90% of my time at the office is spent repeating things to people.

2.  I said, I swear 90% of my time at the office is spent repeating things to people.

3.  Seriously.  Ninety percent.  And if it's not repeating things, it's re-sending things.  Over and over and over.  It's like Groundhog Day but infinitely more annoying because you know the people you're dealing with don't have that whole supernatural amnesia thing as an excuse.  They just weren't paying attention the first twelve times.

4.  Then I get asked why this task or that task hasn't been completed.  And the answer is always something like "Because you forgot the conversation we had three weeks ago where we decided it wasn't necessary for me to print out 3,000 pages of documents that you won't even bother to review, but today -- the last day before I take a long weekend -- you decided you do want me to print out 3,000 pages of documents.  That you haven't bothered to review yet."



5.  I've taken the past two days off of running due to some stress fracture related -- and maybe not related -- issues.  Tuesday that leg was hurting a lot, even if I wasn't putting any weight on it, so Julie and I talked and I decided to take Wednesday's six miler off.  My leg felt okay when I got up Wednesday morning but then a few minutes later in the shower I took a step and something went "SPROING!" in that leg.  It was very weird, particularly since it seemed to be about five inches away from where the stress fracture point is.  Maybe a muscle cramp/charley horse?  We did some calf stretches at yoga Tuesday night, I thought I might have strained a muscle then.  Yesterday I wore my compression socks AND my aircast.  So I also took today off. 

6.  Today my leg feels okay.  No complaints from the site of the healing stress fracture.  However.... dun dun dun!  I have a different spot about four inches below the original stress fracture that is awfully tender along the tibia.  Hmmm.  We are cutting back the weekly mileage for a couple of weeks to see if that helps things.

7.  My mom comes to town tomorrow for a long weekend.  I really need the time away from the office before my head explodes.  The stress level at work has been much higher than normal thanks to extended vacations (not mine) over the past six weeks plus the raise issue (no answer yet) plus dealing with my dogs at home.  In other words, just no place to have nice, peaceful down time. 


8.  I am about ready to swear off carrots.  At least, the raw baby carrots ones that are mass produced from carrot remnants and taste like nothing.  Have you had an actual carrot lately?  One from the farmer's market or your own garden, I mean.  The taste is soooo much better, it's like carrots on steroids.  But they involve actual prep time of peeling and slicing so I don't eat them.  Interestingly, if you take the time to cut up the baby carrots they taste a lot better.  Still, time is a factor.  I have to work this out before I stop eating veggies all together.

9.  The reason the baby carrots taste like nothing is because you can't find a bag of baby carrots that aren't swimming in water.  Then they sit and develop an outler layer of tasteless mush.  Have you noticed this?  I look at ten or twelve bags of baby carrots in the market, trying to determine which one has been marinated in the least amount of water.  Surely we can develop a bag that keeps our carrots from drying out without drowning them. 


10.  After the siding repair at my apartment, during which I learned the original construction did not have a sheet of plywood over the studs between them and the siding, my place retains heat like crazy.  This should be fabulous in the winter.  Right now, it sucks.  Granted it hasn't been cooling down all that much in the evenings here over the past week but my apartment was still at 73 degrees this morning.  Having a window fan blow on me all night long leads to odd dreams.  I won't even try to explain the one I had last night. 

11.  Have I mentioned how absolutely thrilled I am to have a four day weekend?


12.  And..... boss is not likely coming back to the office from lunch.  I need my own business.

13.  But since I work for da man I guess I ought to go finish that work. 

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl 

Monday, August 22, 2011

Mirteen Mings Monday

1.  Because it's my blog, dammit, and I can do what I want.  Plus that cold I've been fighting finally caught up with me and I've barely been on a computer for the past four days so I didn't get to do my planned TTT last week.  Not that I'm doing it today, I'm just still not feeling all that fabulous and numbers are easier.

2.  So, being sick.  No fun.  Slogged through Thursday's run, left work early Thursday and Friday because I was staring off into space from the cold meds.  Which weren't stopping me from coughing for two hours straight.  Might as well do that at home (staring and coughing). 

3.  I did do the scheduled 11 miler on Saturday.  Where the temp was already pushing 70 at 6:00 a.m. and climbed ten degrees by the time we were done.  Julie kept telling me it was burning the germs right out of me. 

4.  Had the slowest service at breakfast post-run.  The manager got annoyed that the waitress still hadn't taken our order and the people across from us so he came to take the other people's order.  Who proceeded to take about ten minutes to order.  One of those "well, I can't decide between these two things, what do you recommend?" AND the husband still didn't know what he wanted.  So then he didn't take our order.  Gah.  Once the waitress did finally come, it took us 30 seconds. 

5.  I've been tracking some of our split times on our runs.  We start out slow, around 14:30 and then speed up.  By a half mile we're going about two minutes per mile faster.  On many days at the end of our track workouts we're in the low 11s to finish out the run.  Last Saturday we ran our second five miles only a minute slower than the first five (ten mile run total).  This Saturday our second four miles were a full minute faster than our first four.  I think.  I was on cold meds and I haven't downloaded my Garmin yet.  I also need to set up my Garmin to automatically lap at each mile so I don't have to remember to do it. 

6.  Today's run sucked.  You can't even call it a run.  I think we ran 0.60 miles total.  Except for Saturday's run, since around 2:00 p.m. Friday afternoon all I've done is hold down my couch.  Most strenuous thing I did was carry the laundry hamper down stairs.  As a result, I was very stiff today, particularly my right leg from the low back down.  I definitely know I have a healing stress fracture.  The worst is that my right piriformis muscle and the right side of my sacrum are all mucked up.  I rolled my left ankle Saturday morning which didn't have much of an effect on the ankle but jolted my back pretty good.  Either the piriformis is pulling the sacrum out or vice versa, but either way it's radiating down my leg. 

7.  I find it amusing how well runners and athletes in general have a good working knowledge of the human body.  Plus I started with chiropractic in high school (my mom managed and I later worked at a chiro clinic) and for a long time I wanted to be a veterinarian so I do know my body parts.  Used to know the name of every bone in the body except for the specific finger and toe bones that have names beyond phalanges.

8.  Phalanges, phalanges, phalanges. 

9.  I also knew all of the muscles.  It was a good way to hit on guys.  "Poor baby, do you want me to rub your sartorius muscle?" 

10.  I actually did that in 11th grade to this guy who sat in front of me in math class.  He wasn't in anatomy class, but the guy who sat next to us was and he was cracking up.  Neither of us would tell the third guy what the sartorius muscle was.  The third guy (my crush) did let me practice memorizing the names of all the muscles in his back and shoulders.  He had great shoulders.  Le sigh.

11.  It's T minus four until my Mom gets here on Friday for a long weekend.  I'm taking her to see Huey Lewis & the News play at the zoo as an early birthday present.  This is I think the fourth time we've seen them; let's see, Puyallup Fair twice, Chinook Winds once, then the zoo.  Yep, four.  We loves us some Huey.  Still missing Chris Hayes from the lineup though, it's about 90% the same sound with his replacement but just not all the way there.

12.  Yes, I am a freak.  I've also seen Barry Manilow at least three times.  With my Mom it's Huey, with my Dad it's Barry.  Last time he got us fifth row tickets, this was when Barry toured with a full orchestra.  It was awesome.

13.  Tired now.  Lunch time.  Boobies!

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

13. 

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Whimsical Wednesday

True story.  I'm driving home from yoga last night and I'm tired and cranky, the latter because I haven't had dinner yet.  I hit a red light and sit flipping through radio stations trying to find decent music.  I land on the soft rock station -- which I almost never listen to -- and the John Tesh show is on.  John Tesh tells me "Well, it's official:  A recent study has concluded that people these days are more self-absorbed."  I immediately stab the next radio station button exclaiming "Oh, who really cares!"

Then it sinks in what he just said versus my reaction.  I cracked up.  Point taken, John.  Point taken.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Run 0 Miles. Lose Three Pounds.

Now this is a completely what the fuck.

The stress fracture leg was bothering me yesterday so at o'dark thirty I texted Julie to bail on our planned run.  It's much better today but for the rest of training I'm going to need a rest day following our long run -- We had actually planned that we might not run yesterday just for this reason plus Julie had some hip flexor/glutes issues. 

On top of the leg issue, that summer cold that is going is trying to get its hooks into me yet again.  I was on cold medicine yesterday, absolutely dragging by late afternoon, and in bed with a NyQuil chaser by 8:30.  I've got a nagging sinus headache today but so far that all seems to be better too.

I ended yesterday with just over the 1,500 calories MyFitnessPal recommended for me.  (I think I'm going to bump that up to around 1,750 but that's another story.)  Went to bed early as I said.... and hopped on the scale this morning to find myself back down to 197.6 and a three pound loss over yesterday.  Again, WTF?

Apparently, exercise makes you fat.  Or perhaps I should say, exercise makes ME fat.

Whatever.

In other news, as you know Friday was the CATnip 5K.  I was just looking back at last year's race recap.  I had started to think I may have been exaggerating how hot it was this time last year, but nope.  It was 95 degrees for last year's race.  This year it was only around 85 but the heat was still brutal.  I took my handheld filled with gatorade with me this year and it made all the difference.  Last year I ran in 0:42:04, this year it was 0:40:22.  Not bad!  In both races I felt like I could've PRd but that heat just sucks everything out of you.  Plus there is this short but STEEP hill right at 2.75 miles.  That's just mean.

After the race they do a fast street mile (the Mouse Miler).  Julie's son Nicholas ran it this year.  We were both too tired to try to run a fast mile -- we both finished the 5K shortly before the mile began -- but luckily a friend volunteered to run it with him.  We were waiting for them to come down the last stretch and saw the front runners come through, these two twin men (38 years old) who finished in 4:25.  That's four MINUTES and twenty-five seconds, people.  I can run a quarter mile in four minutes.  And get this:  a FIVE year old ran it in 13:01.  I feel so slow.


I borrowed this from the CATnip website.  Julie and I and her family are circled.  I'm the one in red with the arrows pointing at me; Julie is next to me in gray.  It's a low key race but still well done.  I even managed to grab a slice of the pizza this year!

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Monday, August 15, 2011

Run 21 Miles. Gain Three Pounds.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong.

So.  I ran 21 miles last week, including one 5K race and yesterday's ten miler.  And I did an hour of yoga.  This morning I get all nekkid and hop on the scale, expecting to see at least a little nudge dowards from last week's 197.8 lbs. 

Instead I see:  200.8. 

What the fuck?

Clearly I'm doing something wrong. 

I didn't feel as though I was eating any differently once I started running again versus when I was sidelined with the stress fracture.  During the ten weeks or so I was out, I gained about five pounds.  Now I'm up another three?  Man. 

I just kicked Aunt Flo's ass to the curb so it shouldn't be the monthly gift of gain.  I've been taking in plenty of fluids so it shouldn't be water retainage ("That woman saved everything!").  I've been eating....

Well, let's look at that.  I thought I hadn't been eating more, but in retrospect I've been adding a little extra and having a few smaller things here and there.  Several office coffee runs over the past several weeks get me some mochas.  Making the hamburger patties bigger.  Extra tater tots.  Going out to lunch more frequently.  A couple of post-run breakfasts that were bigger than they should have been even though I never have a lunch on weekends, only breakfast and dinner.  You should've seen the cinnamon roll Julie and I split yesterday.  Although the eggs benedict and hashbrowns I had with it were stingy with a capital S.  So it shouldn't count.

But it does.  At least in the long run.  My ass tells me so.  Hell, my breasts tell me so.  I am NOT buying yet another bigger bra. 

Today I started keeping a food diary again.  I loathe tracking my food with the heat of a thousand suns.  This time around I'm tracking through MyFitnessPal; my doctor recommended it and it's one I haven't tried yet so I'm giving it a go.  You can find me there as CilleyGirl or cilleygirl (at) comcast (dot) net.  And why do we spell all that out, anyhow? 

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Thirteen Things Thursday

1.  I'm feeling much better today.  Yay!


2.  I found out yesterday that the author of my favorite comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, is coming on tour to Portland on my birthday.  Yay!  (okay, no kitty this time)  I'm hoping that since it will be my birthday, he'll do a particular Pig drawing for me.  My favorite Pig of all time is Pig with wings and a wand and he's joyously sprinkling fairy dust.  I haven't been able to find it in a postable format to show you here, but this is what I plan to get for my next tattoo.  I'm thinking I'll put it on my hip.  So it will look like he's sprinkling fairy dust on my hoo ha.

Pig, in more innocent times.

3.  Do a little dance.  Make a little love.  Get down tonight.  That is all.

4.  That issue with my hip -- well, more of a feeling like a knife was being plunged into my hip every time I moved than an "issue" -- was almost completely resolved once I managed to pop my back last night.  Apparently something was out of whack.  Once it popped, about 80% of the pain went away instantly and the rest worked itself out in this morning's three miler. 

5.  We ran the entire three miler this morning with only one stop midway for water.  Nicely to finally be feeling back in the groove.  Only took four and a half weeks.

6.  Got my hotel and all that set up for the Eugene Women's Half on September 4.  If any readers are doing this race and want to meet up, send me an e-mail at cilleygirl (at) comcast (dot) net.  Sounds like we'll be rolling into town around 3:00 on Saturday, we'll hit the Saturday market for packet pick up and maybe a little shopping, and then we'll be off to a carb friendly dinner.  If you're familiar with Eugene and can recommend a good place for dinner, let me know.  I have no clue.  Mazzi's looks really good...  No vegetarian, please, that's just cruel.

7.  The scale FINALLY started moving dowards.  From 199.0 last week to 197.8 this week.  That's even in anticipation of TOM so I could even be lighter. 

8.  Of course, I celebrated by buying lots of frozen hashbrowns and sausage gravy.  Okay, not really.  I didn't buy any gravy.

9.  I was chatting this week with one of my best friends whom I've known since 10th grade.  I consider her my sister (we're both sort of only children, did a lot of our own raising, yadda yadda yadda) and you'll hear me refer to her kids as my nephew (actually my godson) and nieces.  Anyhow, her middle child who is secretly my favorite just turned 11 this month.  My friend said she got her a book on body changes for her birthday, to which I responded that I had COMPLETELY forgot about that aspect of them growing up.  Which I had.  I can picture them as starting to drive and stuff, just never really thought about the middle part of it all.  That's got to be weird for a parent.

10.  All of that also made me realize that I'm pretty sure I remember the exact date on which I had my first period.  Not necessarily because of that, but because it was the same day I met my stepmother-to-be for the first time.  I was a little bitchy that day.  I found out why when I got home. 

11.  This morning I have had a hummingbird and a big yellow and black butterfly outside my office window.  I'm a lucky girl.

12.  Very sad to hear that Eureka is officially cancelled.  Rumour has it that it is too expensive to produce so it's being cut for the bottom line -- just like what happened with Farscape.  Great, fuck quality entertainment, we need another gold-plated Ferrari!  I fear for the intelligence of the human race, I truly do.

13.  Lots of actually sad things going on in the world right now.  It would depress me to name them so I won't.  I do feel obligated, however, to say this to you:  Boobies.

My work here is done.  Happy Thursday everyone :)

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Whimsical Wednesday

This was obviously supposed to have been posted yesterday, but Blogger went to read-only status right when I went to post it.  I forgot to put it up later on in the evening since I went to bed so early.  Feeling a lot better today!

Howdy all!  Sorry I've been a bit MIA, the demands of work and the siren call of sleep continue to battle for dominance in my life. 
Training continues to go well, knock on wood.  Saturday's eight mile run was great and while I was happy to finish I felt as though I could've gone a little faster, a little longer.  But the third lure in my life -- food -- won out over everything.  It was a great post-run omelette too.  Today's five miler was even better, despite getting up at o'dark thirty to do it.  Yawn.  Except for a persistently sore hip flexor and a few twinges at the stress fracture site, I felt fantastic for this run.  Even with the addition of this killer hill.  We ran it twice during our run, first time we made it about halfway up before walking and the second time we made it about three-quarters of the way up.  Funny how a hill like that can make running on that flat seem so easy afterwards!


Summer colds have been going around -- Jules had a touch of one last week and now my office mates are starting to fall.  I thought it was going to pass me by, but heading on towards noon my throat started to get scratchy and here at the end of the work day I'm feeling feverish and headachy.  Time to add Nyquil to tonight's grocery list.  Hopefully a big slug of that and an early night (tomorrow's run is only three miles, don't have to get up so early for that one) will knock it out.  We adjusted the schedule this week so that we're running four days in a row, including a Friday evening race, the CATnip 5K. I ran it (and melted during it) last year and it was a well organized race with a nice tech tee, plus it's for a good cause. And Saturday's (now Sunday's, we changed things up again since Julie's son is going for his green belt on Saturday.  Yay Nicholas!) long run is ten miles. 


Off to slog through the last few minutes at the office, then home to rest. 


Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Whimsical Wednesday: Ten tons of shit in a five-pound bag

Yes, you read that right.

Ugh, this office remodel SUCKS.  The guy whose bright idea all of this was is getting a little torked off at me because I basically keep telling him that it (and, by extension, he) sucks.  Apparently I forgot the "passive" part of my passive-aggressive wardrobe this week.

Am I being too hard on this guy, too unreasonable?  Well, let me put it this way.  If you are remodeling an office building and you remove all of the office parts of it to replace them with nonfunctional crap, are you successful in the office remodeling business?  Because I'm going to go with NO. 

Imagine that you have an average sized house.  Say, 2,000 square feet.  Imagine that someone comes to you and says, I will make you most beautiful kitchen in the world.  Would you then expect that kitchen to have more than one drawer and one cupboard and more than twelve inches of counterspace? 

It's like he got a checklist of what we needed and responded as follows:

Us: We need more file storage space.
Him:  Let me cut your existing file storage space by at least half.

Us:  We need more light to work by.
Him:  Let me paint the walls an extremely dark color and replace all the light fixtures with much smaller ones that have less wattage.

Us:  We need this remodel to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Him:  Let me make sure the workers show up at random times when no one is ready for them.  Let me also make sure they do stuff like cover all the electrical outlets with baseboard so that you can no longer plug anything in.  Let me also make sure it will all take more than twice as long to do all this so that you can't really work while it's going on.

My boss:  Great!
Us:  Assholes!!!

You may think that I am exaggerating and I'm really not.  The work for my own office space was supposed to take two days.  That was a week ago.  Still not done.

The remodel guy was just in here.  "We're almost done!"  He won't talk to me anymore.  So at least one thing is going right ;)

I should sic the kitty on him....


Cheers,
the CilleyGirl