Snoopy

Oh, what a wild couple of days it’s been!  Click HERE to go to the blog I share with my sister and you can read about Snoopy’s first couple of days.  There are a couple of pictures there as well.

One definite highlight of these past couple of days of being off work to help facilitate the new resident has been the glorious sunshine that we’ve been able to enjoy together.  We’ve walked 17 kilometers since Tuesday night, all the fresh air has felt great!  It’s really good that it’s nice outside too because Ray and I are feeling a little trapped at home right now.  We can’t leave the pets home alone yet which means that either we go out seperately or we stay home.  This morning we were all (dogs and people) laying on the couches depressed with the situation and sleepy from being stressed out and we decided that enough was enough.  Seriously, I know it’s only been a couple of days but our little happy world has been rattled more than we thought and it’s making everything seem hoardes worse!

We four went for our morning 5k and then showered and we threw the dogs in the car and thought, “Sink or swim, just don’t eat my steering wheel!”.  We successfully went for a coffee and then shopped at Costco and no leather was chewed and no fur flew.  Following Costco I was feeling pretty confident so I left Ray home alone and headed to the gym (4am on a day off just seemed cruel!) for Thursday’s workout.

I am SO glad that I waited until mid day to do it because I realized how little energy I have in my early morning workouts!  I felt light as a feather in the warmup jog today, even increasing incline and drilling up the speed.  During weight lifting I managed to add weight to all the movements and felt really strong!  I was consistent all the way through, even up to the final movement, planking.  I had been doing 3 x 45sec of plank but today I got it up to a minute each which is quite incredible!

I’m not sure what I’m going to do going forward, I can’t really get up any earlier to eat first, I already go to the gym in the middle of the night.  I’m going to try and find something fast digesting that isn’t too carby for fuel and see how that goes.  If you are a morning gym-goer, how do you fuel?

Anyway, I should get going & grab a shower while both dogs are sleeping…seperate couches but same room so that’s a huge improvement.

For my friends who happen to be grain free, I MADE BUNS LAST NIGHT!  Seriously, actual buns that will hold filling.  Hamburgers and fried egg sandwiches!  Go HERE to find the recipe!  They are very, VERY good!  A bit time consuming to make and dirties a few dishes, but the four buns you get from it are SO WORTH IT!   (the hamburger picture are the burgers that I originally read about on GirlMeetsPaleo.  They’re delicious burgers to begin with but the addition of the Bacon Balsamic Onion Jam that goes with them is really just killer!)

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Declutter

Is it possible to feel better in one day?  Probably not.  But maybe?  It’s probably not possible to feel completely and 100% totally awesome after having felt like crap for a long while and then finally admitting to yourself that things are pretty sucky right now.  But maybe it’s possible to feel like the spinning has slowed?  Like you’re no longer swirling around in a perpetual flush?

I’m very, incredibly, God-sendingly terrifically blessed that I have a supportive hubby who, instead of tossing my “I think I’m depressed” statement aside, stood beside me and read my plan and made suggestions.  Whether he secretly thinks I’m acting like a crackpot or not, he did and said the right things yesterday and now I don’t have to worry about him finding out that I’m not feeling all puppies and rainbows all the time (yep, that was weighing on me). 

I think my little world has gotten so complicated feeling and that I, a little bit, forgot that I’m just a person with feelings.  I’m no one’s savior and I’m no one’s hero.  I’m not bullet proof, my feelings get hurt.  I’m not filled with boundless energy, I can’t do everything by myself (nor do I, but sometimes I feel like I should).  I try to fix my poor feelings with chocolate and sugar and alcohol and I sometimes wish for pizza and macaroni/hamburger casserole.  I wish I had more money and more time and less worry. 

I’ve said before that I need to go back to basics but all I ever meant by that was that I needed to cram my current self back into a mold that worked previously.  I believed that by hurtling myself into something that has worked in the past and during which I felt good about things, that it would automatically and magically fix whatever was currently ailing.  This time, my Pause Button has been pressed and I’m clearing up the clutter and uncovering the simplistic version of who I am and have always been.   I’m going to throw out all the things that don’t work for me anymore, the things that don’t support me.  I’m going to bring closer the things that make me feel good and strong and nourished.  I don’t want a home here in darkness, I don’t want to keep any souvenirs from these months that have been trying and difficult.  They’re all getting chucked out!

Ray is out of town this week and while I will miss him, I’m kind of glad he’s gone for a couple of days.  It gives me a chance to reset myself without anyone else looking on.  It gives me a chance to slow down in some aspects and speed up in some.  I’ve decluttered my desk at work, filed everything, done my Later Pile and am completely up to date.  I have a vague plan for when I get home this afternoon which will include a long, cool walk in the park with my dog, a good dinner that is already made and some cleaning and decluttering of our home environment. 

I feel…..sad still….and lost and numb and irritated and a bit depressed.  But I also feel like there’s no one and nothing making me stay here, there’s freedom to be had and all I have to do is walk towards it….one little step at a time.

Boring, Beautiful

Could it be?  Could things really be getting back to normal?  Yes.  YES!  I have nothing depressing, dismal or difficult to share.  In fact, I sort of have nothing to share.  I like it!

 

Thursday’s gym date was good, I did Workout A and had to drop some of the weights back a bit but I did better than I thought I would.  I was definitely sore that afternoon and Ray reminded me not to push myself so hard that I extend my recovery.  I am that stupid sometimes, but not this time, I worked smart.  Friday I felt pretty good, I had the ow’s in the morning when I woke up but it was more gym-pain than car accident pain and that is just fine by me!  I called it done for gym until Tuesday though to give myself a decent amount of recovery time.  So tomorrow morning is my next gym date.

 

Friday after work we walked 3.5 kilometers to a favourite pub and had dinner and a couple of drinks and then walked home.  It was so warm and so nice to just be outside.  And, I figure if you’re walking 7 kilometers to and from the pub then the beer you drank AT the pub doesn’t count.  Right?

 

Saturday morning I got us up at 6:30am to go for a walk before we had to get ready for the rest of our day.  We walked about 5km at a decent pace in the warm morning sunshine.  Saturday afternoon I went and bought my flowers for the garden and the garden shelf while Ray worked on the motorhome.  In between planting flowers and pulling up weeds I drank some gorgeous white wine (Burrowing Owl Chardonnay) and rested in the sunshine. 

 

Wine, flowers and sun.

 

Sunday morning we were up at 6:30am again but this time to go on a charity motorcycle ride.  I’m still not able to ride my motorcycle so I was Ray’s passenger for the day.  It was an alright ride and the weather was alright.  Apparantly the food sucked (I didn’t pay to get in to the “lunch” since I knew there would be no options there for me (we’ve been to this ride before)).  It really is my least favourite ride of the year but because it’s for Prostate cancer and all the proceeds stay in our province for care and research, it’s one we just don’t miss.  We were home by 1pm and chose to sit out in the sunshine for a couple of hours and take it easy. 

 

All in all we had a really good weekend, spent lots of time relaxing and soaking in sunshine, eating some ice cream, drinking some wine and settling back into our boring life routine….which I happen to love.

 

That’s about it.  Gym tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday and hopefully everything just keeps ticking right along!

Don’t Panic!

Oh, blissful sunshine!!!!!  Seriously, feels like a balm to my soul to feel the warmth of sunshine….even if not the physical warmth!

 

At 2:30 yesterday I got a call from Ray that he was asked to work 4 hours of overtime and so I was on my own yesterday evening.  I took the opportunity to:

 

A) panic that I might feel inclined to eat all the Lindt bunnies I bought at Costco on Friday since I was home alone unexpectedly

B) panic that I was going to be first home and be forced to clean up whatever biohazard the dog created during the day

 

 

As it was, I ate ONE bunny (acceptable!) and fortunately our dog didn’t mess in the house.  Panic for naught.

 

I made my lunch and put dinner together and then sat on the sofa and started getting my workout logs in order for The New Plan.  It’s very unfortunate that I made the decision to start this when I did because this week is just not going to work for me.  The recommendations are fairly specific in timing to make sure you work in the right number of rest days/hours.  So, instead of jumping in with both feet and starting wildly and randomly, I’m going to start next Monday.  And no, this is not the typical “start Monday” that most people use when they really have no intention of actually starting anything.  My workout days will be Monday, Wednesday and then Friday AM before work.  Monday came and went yesterday, this Wednesday we have a huge family birthday dinner to attend and I would prefer not to have my first day of a completely new workout on Friday before work since I have no clue how long it will take and would prefer to not be either late for work or stupidly early.  And so, next Monday it is! 

 

On that note, since no exercise at all isn’t really an option, tonight after work I’ll hit the trail for a jog.  Since I have a 10k in April to train for and jogging is something I’ll keep doing anyway, there’s no sense in just sitting around for a full week waiting, right?

 

In other news, Ray took my “before” pictures last night.  And?  They weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be.  You know how we’re all either extra critical of ourselves or conversely we have our heads stuck in the sand and refuse to pay attention to signals and signs that things aren’t good?  My photos definitely leave room for improvement, but they were nowhere near as upsetting as I thought that they would be.  Tonight I’m going to do my measurements and then I’ll be ready to go.

 

I’m really nervous about starting this.  This morning while getting ready there was a nasty little voice in my head that kept saying “This isn’t going to be for me.”, which is bothersome.  I know that I’m going to struggle with it at first, being that it’s brand new and not similar to anything I’ve done before…even though I’ve done a weight routine in the past.  But I will just keep remembering, you can only go up from here.  So for the next week while I’m panicking about looking like a fool or failing…..it might suck at first but no one is perfect off the hop.  And 6 weeks and 3 months and finally 6 months from now when I’m totally done the program, I’ll have something to be proud of!

Strength During Weakness

Well, this weekend didn’t turn out at all like I’d planned and to be honest I’m a bit bummed about it.  I packed my gym bag on Friday night, didn’t drink and went to bed early.  7am my alarm went off and three minutes later I was back in bed.  We got 5″ of snow overnight and I stood and watched out my front window while the neighbor’s husband attempted to push her car off of our street.  We have the barest amount of incline in our cul de sac and without a 4WD or chains it is impossible to get going enough to make it up the bump.  Since I had no intention of shovelling my driveway by myself at 7am or digging myself off the street, I didn’t get to go to spinning.  In an effort to make myself feel better, I took us out for a nice quiet breakfast.  It was quite delicious but unfortunately started off a weekend of non-mindful eating.  As though I’d lost my mind, actually.  I’m feeling like a complete fraud right now.  My overall outside is healthy and attractive looking but my inside is stale and poisoned right now. 

 

We did go for a 5km trail walk yesterday afternoon which was….well…..it just was.  It wasn’t great.  It was not what I wanted.  I mean…it was, but nothing is feeling very shiny at the moment, I feel like I’m having to really put forth a lot of effort to squeeze the positive, shiny bits out of things and I just don’t have the energy for it at the moment.

 

My girl is coming over after work to give me a wax and then there is a half hour spin class at 6:45.  I really, REALLY want to go, I really, REALLY want to not have any excuse or reason for not going.  But I fear that given a miniscule opening, I’m going to take it and stay home and that is just going to build on the bad feelings I’m having right now.

 

I need to do all the things that I tell people to do…..do the next right thing, make “it” more important than anything else, push through because that’s the only way to get through.

 

So I have to push through and find my invincible summer in the midst of this patch of dark winter.  Because the other option is giving up and I am NOT a quitter.  I just have to find a way to be stronger than I feel at the moment.