Cancer sucks

Tuesday was take your friend to chemo day and so that’s what I did.  I picked Cheri up from her work and we headed down to the Lemmen-Holten Cancer Pavilion.  We arrived early enough to have a yummy lunch in their cafe and then quickly browse the gift store.  They had shirts with sayings like Cancer Sucks, Warning: I have chemo brain, what’s your excuse? and I fight cancer like a girl… which the latter was my personal favorite. 

I think the expectation would be that this would be a horrible experience, taking someone you love to their chemo appointment.  A slap in the face with the reality that they do have cancer, just in case you forgot.  But my friend, Cheri is amazing. 

Playtime is over

“I am going to kick your butt today and I am not even playing”

Those are the words said by

Resolving to be resolute

Aaaahhh!!!  What the heck happened to my blog?  One might start to suspect that I had disappeared like the 2009 calendars.  Swallowed up by a snow bank on my way to drop children at a school.  But no, here I am.  I apologize for the neglect.  As with all things in life, blogging tends to be cyclical depending on what is or what’s not happening in life and I was definitely in a down turn of mine.  Let us begin the upswing… shall we?  In honor of that upswing, let me share with you something that I’ve kept secret for far too long.

Insane in the membrane

A couple of weeks ago, Dan & I were watching tv.  As I flipped through the channels, I noticed an infomercial for a workout.  I’m not really one to watch infomercials but this one reminded me of P90x so I stopped to watch, wondering if someone had made a knockoff.  I watched in amazement as the people exercised.  Unlike a lot of DVD’s, the people doing this workout actually looked like they were in pain.  The announcer explained the theory behind Shaun T’s (the instructor) workout.  Long intervals of intense exercise with short rest periods instead of long intervals of moderate exercise with short bursts of intensity. 

I’d been wondering how to maintain the level of cardio I had accomplished training for the half marathon.  The snow has been pretty steady since December started and I haven’t been able to make myself run on the treadmill longer than 3 miles.  It would only be a matter of time before I lost all the muscle and conditioning that I’d spent months getting.  The answer seemed to be Insanity.  The longer I watched, the more I had to have it! 

And so we began our Insanity transformation.  We’re just beginning our 3rd week and already I can see & feel a difference.  I thought I was in good shape before but I’m stronger now than I was before.  We did our 2nd Fitness test yesterday and have gotten much better in each category.  I have to say that each workout leaves you panting and exhausted which is exactly what I was looking for and the timeline is perfect.  I should end my 60 days right when I need to start training for the 5/3 Riverbank Run 25k.  My hope is that this Insanity training will lead to my being a better & stronger runner. 

 

A-Punk

I have been trying for the last 6 months to find this song and I’m so excited to finally have tracked down the name of the band and song.  Thanks to a HP printer commercial and my dear friend Google.  Enjoy!

When passive aggressive meets paint

Dan & I bought our house 8.5 years ago.  When we purchased it, every room was white and plain.  The first room to get painted was actually the laundry room (tan) that Dan built me in the basement.  Next he worked on the bathroom (beige) in the basement so we could start the remodel on the bathroom upstairs (violet so light that you think it’s white).  Emma’s bedroom was the next to get painted (purple) and then not even a year later repainted to a brownish green when Gerrit was born and took over that bedroom.  Our kitchen & dining room got painted a couple of years ago a basic beige color that has a slight tinge of green to it and I continued that color into the hallway.  Dan completed the basement in the spring and obviously painted it (light brown).

All the while, I had bemoaned the fact that my living room was white.  It was nearly blinding.  The more I looked at it, the more I hated it.  Dan was leaving for a week at deer camp and I started scheming.

Baby, it’s cold outside

 

Last night, it started snowing.  While not being an unsual event around these parts, the unusual part was that it had waited to snow until now.  It’s not unheard of for us to get a dusting in Oct and certainly by my birthday in November, the ground will be covered at least once or twice with the white stuff.  For whatever reason, we had been spared so far and all of us were getting pretty excited about it.  Particularly, me.

As I’ve said before, snow is horrible, awful, cold stuff that sucks the energy and life out of me.  If I have to leave the house, I often view it as an evil nemesis, plotting me & my vehicle’s demise.  My opinion hasn’t changed and with my return to bus driving, the plot has thickened.

I’d be a bold face liar if I tried to tell you

The mind forgets but not the heart

Intuition

Have you ever had a moment that you realized your life wasn’t where you wanted it to be?  You’re plugging along and bam… it hits you.  This isn’t what you had planned and you have no idea how you ended up on this road.  It’s amazing how far away you can get before it dons on you.

It seems our lives are like swimming in the ocean.  If you aren’t paddling against it, the current can sweep you away.  Unknowing of how far you’ve been carried away.