It's been a long couple of weeks and I think my body's trying to tell me "enough is enough." Though I don't want to tempt the fates, I will go so far as to say that I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I'm hoping it will fade as the day progresses, but I've been riding myself pretty hard these past few weeks so I wouldn't be surprised if I've run myself down enough to pick up one of the more than plentiful viruses that are going 'round. So far, every one of the east coast Todnems has avoided the flu bug that has been running rampant over at Ms. Tracy's and through the offices. I would much rather come down with a nasty head cold that lasts for a week than a 24-hour flu bug. Ugh!
There's nothing worse than vomiting - unless it's dry heaves.
I'm glad to hear the bug is packing up to leave up there in Naches - just don't send him east, please.
The weather experts around here are really losing face as of late. They've been more than a little off in their predictions this winter. You expect the normal rate of errors like getting a little more or a little less of the predicted snow, or a little colder or a little warmer temps than posted, but the weather service has just been completely off. Twice now they've called winter storm advisories for our area, only to get a big nothing. It was supposed to start snowing yesterday around 9 am and continue throughout the day, turning to freezing rain overnight, leading to a very nasty commute this morning. There were a few flakes around 6 am yesterday (only enough to see them in your headlights kind of thing), then nothing...absolutely nothing all day and all night. For our commute this morning, we had a VERY light misting of hard rain which turned to a light misting of regular rain the further south we got, and then that stopped. I guess I shouldn't really complain, but I just wish we'd get one good snow to get it over with and give Kadie something to play in. It's like they're teasing us, and not even giving us any type of booby prize for all the frustration we're putting up with.
Now, on to more pleasant subjects...
I took Lisa's advice and ordered that Proactive system for my face. The acne is just another wonderful symptom of the PCOS thingy, but the Proactive stuff appears to be geared toward acne caused by out-of-whack hormones so I'm hoping for the best. I have to admit, my face is definitely less dry now. I've only been using it for 3 days, but the normal, cracked, flaky winter skin that you put up with around this time of year cleared up almost instantly. The products are very soothing from day 1.
I, too, started back on the exercise kick. I have to do it first thing in the morning or I don't have time otherwise, so my alarm has been set to 3 am for this last month. It's getting easier to get up as the weeks go by, but I've found it's more a matter of, when the alarm goes off, just roll out of bed and go. If I hang around and try to "wake up" first, it's so much easier to listen to that voice in my head going, "Just five more minutes, mom!" I found a routine that works for me - I'm using the Leslie Samsone videos. She has a host of them out there, but they're all based on simple walking movements. There's no intricate footwork that just ain't gonna happen at 3 am and she's bubbly enough to be friendly w/o overdoing it to the point where you want to do your kicks closer and closer to the TV screen. She has her basic walks that cover 1, 2, 3, 4 and now even 5 miles and then she has several Interval training DVDs like Walk and Jog, Walk and Kick, Walk Strong, etc. The interval training is supposed to be the best for you and I'm definitely feeling it within minutes of pushing play (I would recommend getting comfortable with the 1 and 2 mile walks before hitting the interval training tapes if you're just starting out). She also does a lot of strengthening moves and uses weights for parts of the videos, so I feel like I'm getting my weight training and aerobics in all at the same time. The best part for me is that most of her workouts are only 30 minutes long (I use the 1 mile workout - only 20 minutes long - for a pick me up on my "off" days). I'm feeling a lot better and a lot of my PCOS symptoms are starting to diminish.
Kadie is doing well. She's refusing to take naps at Ms. Tracy's so she's been conking out, almost mid-sentence, on the rides home. She apparently sleeps like me (so I'm told), with her eyes half open. She also has the most comical snore - she actually whistles on the breath out. It's so cute!
She's gotten a lot better with Lost - not as many scratches and a lot more episodes of gentle petting. She still goes for the tail when she doesn't think we're looking and she's in a mood, but we're still working on it.
Jeff's doing well. He's coming up on 35 - shhh! He's enjoying his new car - yeah, I said "car" - whatcha gonna do, Jeff?
I think I've driven 2 times, maybe 3, in the past 2 weeks and one of those times was on the weekend to go get groceries.
We took a hooky day from work to spend our anniversary just tooling around. Seven years! Can you believe it? We got some Starbucks, some breakfast and then ran a few errands (as much isn't open at 7 am). Around 9 am, we stopped at the mall and walked around for about an hour before things started opening up. We browsed through Best Buy and then Bed, Bath and Beyond before we stopped at one of the in-mall restaurants and ate a leisurely lunch. After that, we watched Children of Men at the mall theater (this mall is HUGE and has almost everything you need to survive - even a medical clinic), then left to go pick up Kadie. It was a pleasant and relaxing day, albeit a lot of walking was involved.