Thursday, July 11, 2013

busy, busy, little bee

Whew – it’s been a crazy handful of days since my last post… I made it through the epidural steroid shot (10 days ago) and have felt some relief (don’t worry, I’ve been tracking in my little book to review with the doctor in 30 days).  I walked 2.6 miles last Saturday while I was coaching with Team in Training.  I felt pretty good.  My doctors’ orders were to do what felt comfortable as far as walking goes, only use machines at the gym, NO running, and taking it easy.  I haven’t made it to the gym – I don’t want to give excuses….  I need to get there, just walk in the door, no expectations, just walk in the door…. So when can I commit to going?  I WILL go to the gym on Saturday after TnT – a nice easy, relaxed workout, no pressure.   I did walk through the Farmer’s market at work today – two Thursday’s ago I could get there because of the pain.  I need to remember that these little walks are the positives that I was looking for – it’s not going to all come back right away.  I see the doctor again on the 30th and hopefully he releases me to start slowly running to see how it feels, my fingers are crossed! 

I have been sporadically logging my food in my paper weight watchers tracker.  I didn’t find anyone on the local weight watchers FB page to review my log which felt a bit deflating (I guess I was expecting a ton of people to be in the same place and offer up their help).  There is someone who offered to review my food log over the weekend so as bad as it is right now I will still share.  If nothing else I have been eating normal meals, decent snacks and no crazy ‘treats’.  Well, we did have Brown Bear frozen yogurt last night, but I got the low-fat version and not a lot of crazy toppings.   It’s been better than a bad week, not a stellar week, but better than I was doing.  It’s really hard when I always strive for perfection to let myself have some wiggle room.  I’ve heard it before but this is worth repeating – this not a diet it’s a live-it!  I will go to my weight watchers meeting tomorrow night and weigh-in.  The number on the scale is not important this week, for me getting into the meeting and getting back into the routine is what I’m striving for.

Since my back was giving me so much pain I asked around and found a young man who was willing to help me out and mow my lawn.  I learned to ‘run’ in the Y-Run Club in Puyallup and his dad is a runner with us.  It feels so good to come home to a freshly mowed lawn.  I felt guilty at first but now I know I’m helping him as much as he is helping me and hey he’s making some summer money and learning how to have a part time job.  Plus he got jobs from two of the neighbors when he was here on Sunday!!! Anyway, even though I’m feeling better and I could do it on my own I’m going to keep having him come, at least until school starts.  I need to heal and make sure that I keep myself strong, plus I can do the ‘fun’ stuff because I’m not so tired from doing the manual labor part.  Look at me trying to justify it – I’m paying for a service and it’s worth the $11/hr!  No one is judging!

And in other news my lovely little Subaru has been having some serious mechanical issues.  Like $4,000 repair issues! YIKES!  So I’ve been weighing the cost to do the repairs or get a different used car – a stresser for sure.  In the meantime I’ve been driving around smelling like burning oil, leaving oil slicks and praying that my timing belt didn’t snap… Buying a new house just six months ago I was worried about having to go out and get another big ticket loan (plus I worry about money all the time since I’m my own breadwinner).  Anyway Cooper came with me on Saturday and we did some test driving to get me started.  It was so very helpful to have him help me get my feet wet and just ‘be there’ while I talked to the salespeople.  I worked at a car dealership in college and I’ve negotiated three car deals in my past but it’s never easy.  Anyway – long story short I sold the Subaru to a place that has two shops, one that repairs Subaru’s and the other that sells them.  They had looked at my car in early June and know the amount of work it needs – I got a very reasonable price from them and I feel good that Miss Subbie will go to someone who is looking for her and not just a wholesale junker land.  I took my money to Lakewood Ford and bought myself a used Hyundai SUV.  It’s a bit of an upgrade from the subbie but it’s a great car and has low miles.  When I get back to running its going to be a great race vehicle and it’s even AWD so I can get up to the mountains in the winter for snow shoeing!   Buying a car is never easy but I can honestly say that this was an easy experience.  I was treated with respect and I was able to negotiate a good price and get a loan all on my own. Talk about feeling empowered!  Darby dog went for her first ride tonight and she’s got a ton of space to enjoy now. 

Gheez,I can go on and on but really I need to prepare for FRIDAY!!! And get my rear to bed – sleep is important both for my weight loss efforts and for my back recovery.

This weekend is a busy one; a long Team in Training Saturday practice with a strength clinic at a Physical therapist, workout at the gym, tapas and wine with Cooper at his friends house, Coaching at the See Jane Run event in Seattle, going to show my Dad my new car and design & drafting of a custom residence for a side client – yep, that’s a busy weekend and I love it!!!

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