Catch-Up

Oh, life is busy.

I've got 12 days until the half marathon.  I ran 10 miles on Friday, my first double digit run.  It went better than I thought, and was encouraging for the race coming up.  My knees were incredibly sore for the rest of the day, and I'm not sure my legs have ever felt the way they did when I was finished... I had to have B come pick me up after I hit the 10 mile mark.  My muscles are still sore today, but much better.

M has had a rough week.  Been to the vet twice, and on 4 different pills right now.  Long story short, we're treating her as if she has Lyme disease (she tested positive for Lyme exposure a few weeks ago and 90% of dogs that test positive for exposure never show any symptoms) since there is no way to confirm if her symptoms are from Lyme, and she seems to be getting better - which would make us, and the vet, conclude that's the issue.  Fingers crossed, she'll continue to get better and be back 100% to her normal self.

Work is crazy.  School is ramping up, with only about 7 weeks until I'm D-O-N-E.

Lately it's felt like my brain and body haven't been connected.

Like when I faxed myself 54 blank pages (aka upside-down in the fax machine)
Or when I thought something was wrong with the truck because it was hot on my feet.  It's okay - it was just the heat.

Playing catch up on life is exhausting.

T minus 1 month

1 month from today I will be able to say I finished my first half marathon. (um, I better be able to say it!)

I'm in surprisingly good shape - as in no real injuries *knocks on wood*.  I have some sore legs, my knees act up, and I get shoulder pains. But its nothing I haven't been able to fight through.

My longest single run so far has been 7.3 miles.  I have an 8, 9, 11, and 10 left before the race.  My highest weekly mileage has been 20, which included two long runs.  Provided I complete my 5 miles tomorrow and 8 on Sunday, this week will be 23.  And the remaining weeks will increase from there.  Hopefully my body can handle it.

I've been using the Garmin B got me for my birthday for all of my runs and its amazing.... I just haven't been able to fully utilize all the features yet (the heart rate monitor, pace alarms, etc.).  Hopefully I'll find myself from free time to figure that out soon, but I'm not holding my breath.

My sneakers have about 240 miles on them.  I got them last July, but haven't been running consistently.  The rule of thumb is 300-500 miles.  Having worked in a sports shoe store (no literally, it was called Sportshoe Center) and knowing how important the right shoe, and replacing that shoe at the appropriate time is, I'm starting to panic a little.  Because I'll be over 300 miles by the race.  But you shouldn't wear brand news shoes (or anything) at a race.  So, I think I have to cough up the dough so I can run in them for a few weeks prior.  And then I can just switch back and forth for a while until my current shoes turn into my dog walking, mud, gardening, everyday sneakers.

Since I'm cheap, and picky, I have to try and find my current shoes in my size, on sale somewhere.  They came out with new ones, and the color choices are all ugly.  Which stinks, because looking good is clearly the most important part of running.

My fundraising is going awesome.  I have some very generous people in my life, that I am very grateful too! (Oh, and if you'd like to be one of them, go for it!) (Is it tacky that I just linked that twice? Yes? Oh well.)

Old Dog, New Tricks

To quote a friend from the other day "I love my dogs more than I love most people."

It's true. M isn't like a part of our family, she IS a part of our family.  She's adorable and fantastic and wonderful.

90% of the time.

The other 10% of the time... she's possessed by some doggie devil.  Like on walks when she slows down, and then runs as fast as she can to the end of her (8ft) leash, flying in the air and yelping.  Or when we have people over for dinner and she's trying to crawl in their laps or barking until someone pays attention to her.  Or, the worst is the mailman.  She has destroyed the trim around our bay window from her daily freakouts when he arrives.

She's been to basic obedience, clicker off lead training, and achieved her canine good citizen certificate.  She took over a years worth of agility classes, and probably could have competed and done well if we had the time, desire, and money.

Yet, she can't walk on a leash. She begs. And she hates anyone that delivers things (this is not limited to the mailman, she hates UPS and Fedex men as well, even if she just sees that brown truck drive by.... and one day she flipped out when the neighbors got a delivery from Lowe's.)

I can't tackle it all in a day, these are learned behaviors we have let go on far too long.  And its time to get this dog in line.  And trust me, it's not her fault - it is entirely ours for letting it happen.  Because you guys, she is SO smart.  Incredibly smart.  As I said, she could have competed in agility.  She knows her different toys by name.  We taught her "paw" in 5 minutes - using peanuts.  Teaching this "old dog" (she's 4... she's not really that old anyway) new tricks is totally possible on her part, we just need to be consistent and make it happen.

My first mission...I hate the thought that the people we walk by in the neighborhood probably think she's some vicious beast, foaming at the mouth with red eyes.  I long to take her for a walk without my arm being pulled out of its socket because a leaf blew across the road.

Today was day one of Mission: Please Walk Normal.  I broke out the 'clicker' we used to use in training.  (There's a whole bunch out there on the internet on clicker training for dogs, and I believe it is also used in horse training.)  And I threw a stick of string cheese in my pocket.

It started out okay.  But the loop we do gets progressively worse - with other dogs, people, and memories of bad experiences.  The first test came when a woman, her daughter, and their dog were walking towards us, but taking a side street.  I made her sit.  It took about 10 tries, and me shoving the cheese in her face to show her she'd actually get something if she listened. (At home, she'll sit on command 98% of the time.)  I used the "with me" command we learned in obedience classes.  I don't know if she remembered or not, but I tried to reward her each time she walked with some slack on the leash.

There's a house with two dogs that always, whether they're inside or out, always bark at her.  And she always flips out.  Armed with my string cheese, we were able to get by - them barking away AND a cable guy in the driveway - with minimal incident.  She was very alert and pulled some, but she didn't bark back.  I'll take it as a victory.

The worst is a house about 5 down from ours.  They have these obnoxious little dogs that have chased us down the street more than once, and there were kids out in the driveway today too.  I spent a good five minutes getting her to sit and stay, to try and calm her as we approached.

She gets this crazy look in her eyes, like she's looking right past me, even with cheese in her face.  We struggled on the side of the road for a while, me likely looking like an idiot, her whining trying to see around me and not keeping her butt on the ground like I asked her to.

Eventually she got the sit, and she got the stay.  There was a lot of pulling as we walked by, but no barking, and no crazy weird jumping straight up in the air at the end of her leash like she's famous for around these parts.

We played the sit and stay game while I opened the garage and the house door.  She did great then.

I'm sure to onlookers she still looked crazy.  But trust me, it was a huge improvement for one day of effort.  She's still pulling, and I have to distract her from other dogs/people/squirrels/objects.  But its better, and I'll take it.

One day at a time.  She's lucky she's so darn cute.

(Yes, that's from last summer. It is no where near warm enough for that yet. 

 Yes, her and I are both anxious for it to be that warm again soon.)

March 2011: Rewind

I'm glad for March to be over.  And for the reason, I'm going to make this a quick post.

B's Gram passed away on the 22nd, after several weeks of being in the hospital.  It's been a very difficult time for the family, a lot of reminiscing, which is painful, but there was laughter as well as stories were exchanged and pictures sorted through.  It's been draining, and exhausting, etc.  She is already greatly missed.

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My training is still going well for running.  Have really upped the mileage over the last two months and my legs are feeling it, but I've been able to stay away from any injuries, just the typical aches and pains.  In March I ran 44 miles and did 17 miles on the elliptical for a total of 61 miles (February was 52 miles).  I did miss a few runs last week due to circumstances, but luckily I don't think I lost much, if any, of my endurance from the training I've done so far.  Only 33 days left!!  I've had a few tough runs lately, so just trying to push through the next few runs and hopefully be back on track.

Also, I've started my last term of grad school!  As of today, only 10 weeks until I am DONE with school!

Getting back to routine, which will hopefully include more frequent posts, especially since we're going to be working on some little project around the house that I hope to share soon.

February 2011: Rewind

Yes, I realize its now halfway through March.  Oh well.

February was kind of a blur to be honest.  There was good, there was bad, there was a lot of work, and more snow.

B and I went skiing with my mom.  The Packers won the Superbowl.  We watched my parents dog for a few days while they went on vacation (which is good, they needed one! but... so do I...)  Taught my sister-in-law to drive stick and sold her my car.

Because... I got my dream car. Kinda.  Meet my new ride.

 

A 2011 Chevy Silverado Extended Cab 4-wheel-drive pick up.

I say kinda, only because I wanted the blue one.  And I need to have steps and bed rails put on.  Otherwise, perfection :)

I've wanted a truck for a long, long time.  Specifically a Silverado.  It's massive.  And awesome.  And I can run over curbs and even the trash at the end of our driveway without even knowing it! (Ok, that's not so good, but I swear I've gotten better in the last month!)  It was a little spur of the moment, although we had been discussing the fact we were going to need a biggest truck eventually anyway.  And B can't (won't) drive stick, so only having one car we could both drive was getting old.  Plus, B's sister needed a more reliable vehicle ASAP.  And we got an amazing deal.  Everything sort of just made sense.  So now, we're a redneck two truck family for the time being.  We'll see B's (little) truck eventually and get a car or small SUV.  But for now, our driveway looks redneck.

At least mine is the big one.

Also, I turned 26 last month. I feel old.  But, B got a whole bunch of our friends together at a local restaurant a few days before, which was awesome.  I hadn't gotten a chance to see a lot of them in a while, so it was really great.  My actual birthday... I went to the gym before work which was satisfying, but ended up working late, being cranky, and wasn't overly impressed with the day.  Oh well.  Presents?  Yup, I got a few.  I'll post about those someday, I'm all kinds of decked out in electronics and awesomeness these days.

Unfortunately, on Valentine's Day B's gram had an accident and has been in the hospital since.  Prayers and positive thoughts are appreciated.

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On a different note, I've been successful in keeping up with my workouts.  I won't post the calendar now, but I assume you I've been doing well!  For instance, in the month of February I ran 52 miles.  52!!  My previous highest mileage months were 37 miles in October and November.  My half marathon training is going better than I thought it would.  (And if you feel like donating go for it!)

I don't think I have too much else to say about February.  Maybe because it ended 15 days ago and can barely remember what I had for breakfast today, so it's all pretty much all fallen out of my head at this point.

I still owe a bathroom renovation summary.  But mostly I feel like talking about running lately, so stay tuned for some a lot of running babbling in the coming weeks.

Lacking Motivation

Sometimes in life, its a struggle to do any more than what's necessary.  And sometimes its a struggle *just* to do what's necessary.

Just to be clear, the current necessities include, but are not limited to:

• a full time job regularly including 50+ hour weeks
• two graduate classes
• 2-4 days a week of zumba
• half marathon training
• keeping the house from falling apart

Nevermind the many roles I have with my family and friends... wife, doggie-mom, daughter, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, confidant, support system, bridesmaid... etc.

I owe updates.  I have one more post I wanted to do for the house celebration.  I need to update you on my half marathon training (which is going well!).  And I need to recap February.

Now that I have a list... hopefully I can get to it :)

Master Bedroom Improvements

The master bedroom was one of the big selling points for me.  Sure, we don't spend that much time there, but the cathedral ceilings, large amount of space, and windows on three sides make it feel like a little escape.

When we moved in the walls were white with flower stencils around the windows, and an ugly, ugly green carpet. (Can you spot M?)

The flower stencils had to go.  And the white was overwhelming.

Aww, aren't I cute?

We attempted to paint the ceiling. It didn't come out awesome, but better than it was.

The first time we painted.  The walls looked awful with the carpet but decided we didn't care because knew we would eventually get rid of that nasty carpet.

The first time we painted we didn't paint the hall area.  Mostly because by the time we got to the bedroom I was completely painted out, and justified it by saying it provided more of a separation.

This was all done pretty much the first month we lived here (March 2008).  Last March, in 2010, our friend who does flooring let us know about a really good deal on bamboo flooring.  In order to do the bedroom, we needed a deal, because 400 square feet of flooring adds up pretty fast!  So we went for it, the bamboo is still wood flooring like the rest of the house, which is what we wanted, but provides a slightly different look.

In preparation for the flooring we planned to repaint the bedroom a slightly darker shade of green, and removed the carpet and baseboards the night before.  In removing the baseboards, we found what we seem to *always* find in our renovations, MOLD.  (There's a long story about some flooding that happen with the master bathroom that the previous owners never told us about...)

So B ended up having to take a good chunk out of the wall.  These projects are never as easy as you think they'll be...

M loves carpet padding. So gross.

It was a late night of re-drywalling before the flooring was supposed to go in.

It was the first really beautiful spring day, so luckily we could open up all the windows and let the fresh air in for our friends working on the floor.

Welcome to the improved B&S master bedroom.  This is the entry off the hall into the master 'suite'. The bathroom is on the left, and our closets are on the right. Feels cleaner, fresher, younger.

Now if I can just get around to replacing those shades...

Before and after of the closet

And that big hole in the wall?

Would hardly even know it was there.  Also, we replaced the baseboards with thicker ones, and I love them. So much so, we're in the slow process of putting them throughout the house.

And then of course there's the addition of the flat screen TV that B got me for our anniversary, and the electric fireplace we purchased.  It not only looks nice, but also the fireplace helps to take the chill off in the bedroom during these cold, seemingly never-ending, winter months.

Future changes in here definitely include changing the shades.  As soon as I can figure out what exactly I want, and then find it on sale somewhere :)  I've also considered a rug in there... not sure.  And of course, grown up bedroom furniture someday would be nice...