Walking Wednesday

I have nothing in particular to talk about today, so I thought I’d get you all caught up some more on the pictures from the virtual site. I took Sunday off, and I just did strength training on Monday.

Tuesday I did one mile on the elliptical, and it felt pretty good. I accomplished my goal of doing it in blocks of 300 revolutions. I think I probably could have done the last chunk in 400 revolutions, but I took that last break. Might try that sometime soon. Not sure if I should up my chunks to 400 or not yet. Soon, but maybe not quite yet.

Here are some pictures.

Mile 469.6 (Elliptical for .7 mile)                                    Mile 470.4 (Elliptical for .7 mile)

                       

Mile 471 (Elliptical for .7 mile)                                       Mile 471.6 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

                       

Mile 472.6 (Elliptical for 1 mile)                                     Mile 473.6

                       

 

(photo credit - Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Tuesday’s Stats:

Cardio - Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None.
Time - 32:08

Up for tomorrow? Strength training and another mile!

Keep moving!

Good Reads Lately

Too many books, and no time to read them all. That’s my problem. Although, over the last 5 or 6 months, I’ve read quite a few books (for me). I’ve listed a few of my favorites below, along with upcoming books I’m planning to get to soon.

Book I’ve Read:

Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks:
-The Way of Shadows
-Shadow’s Edge
-Beyond the Shadows

The Night Angel trilogy is a fantasy series that follows the story of an orphan boy, named Azoth. The series follows him through young adulthood, in which he becomes a magical assassin. He struggles with choosing his profession or choosing a family life.

This series is a bit slow, but still a good read. Easy to get though, and is what I consider to be a light read. It took me a few months to read all three books.

The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin:

I’m currently reading this science fiction book, and I have about 100 pages left to go. It’s been a great read so far. This is about a man, Justin Cord, who puts himself into cryostasis due to a health issue (don’t want to ruin anything). He gets revived 300 years later and the world is totally different. Everyone is “incorporated” at birth, and over their lifetime they try and get more control over their lives by obtaining more of their stock. The more of their own stock they have, the more independent they are. Just is not incorporated and is fighting to stay that way.

The Passage by Justin Cronin:

This is a book my parents got me over the holidays last year. It’s probably one of my favorite books that I’ve read over the last several years. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, due to a military experiment gone wrong. Vampire-like monsters abound, and if someone gets bitten, they get the virus and turn into a monster too. The story follows the colonies of this new world and how they live through the new times.

I don’t want to give too much away, and it would be easy to do this. I just found out that this is planned to be a trilogy. I knew about the second book in the series which was just released about a week ago, but I guess there’s a third book that will be out sometime too. Good news!

Upcoming Books to Read:

The following are books that I plan to read soon.

The Twelve - Book following The Passage
The Unincorporated War - Book following The Unincorporated Man
The Unincorporated Woman - Book following The Unincorporated Woman

Other than those, I’m sure there are a ton more books that I will want to read. I need to learn to speed read.

What are you all reading these days? What’s your favorite genre?

Mileage Monday Strikes Again!

Seems like I just did one of these. The days are flying by, and so are the miles! Monday’s workout might be a light day or another off day. I might just do strength training, and call it a day. My lower right leg still has knots in it, plus I was doing a lot of kneeling and bending over on Sunday. So I worked out Sunday, even though I didn’t “work out”.

I went through a bunch of old clothes and washed them. I plan on giving them away someplace. I do not like throwing away clothes if they’re still wearable. I feel bad. I have a hard time giving stuff away sometimes too. I still have my Snoopy from when I was like 3 years old. Plus a few other stuffed animals. They’re in a bag in the closet. What should I do with them? Hmmm.

I went through one drawer thinking it was full of certain clothes, but it turned out to be filled with my fat pants. No hesitation on those suckers. They went into the washing machine and will be given away somewhere at some point.

We’ll see what happens today in terms of working out. I won’t feel bad for taking it off if I do. Tuesday, however, I’ll be aiming for a mile on the elliptical. We’ll see how the knots are then.

Here are the pictures from the virtual walk site.

Mile 466.2 (elliptical for .5 mile)                                  Mile 466.8 (elliptical for .5 mile)

                     

Mile 467.2 (elliptical for .5 mile)                                  Mile 467.8 (elliptical for .5 mile

                     

Mile 468.2 (elliptical for .5 mile)                                   Mile 469 (elliptical for .7 mile)

                      

 

(photo credit - Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Keep moving!

Music Helps Everything Go A Little Faster

Sunday has been a long day so far, and it’s not even noon. Only had about 5 hours of sleep, thought the husband was working this morning, and was up at 5:30. Turns out, no work (woohoo!), but there was no going back to bed either. Today, I’m dealing with laundry, going through old clothes, and doing a general clean-up of stuff. I’m not exercising today, due to all the other stuff I’m doing. I also have been dealing with muscle knots in my lower right leg (the knee twitch is still there too, heh). So a day off might ease up the knots.

What helps me do all this housework? Music! You all know I have to listen to music when I’m on the elliptical, but I’ve begun listening to it as I clean too. I use Pandora.com to listen to streaming music. I have a variety of play lists to choose from. On the elliptical I use my “cardio list”, which includes (in no particular order) Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga (although I think I might delete her), Nickelback, Bon Jovi, Pink, Katy Perry, and Matchbox Twenty. I need to add Googoo Dolls to that list.

If you remember a long time ago, I said I could only listen to Bon Jovi when I exercised. No more. As a matter of fact...get ready for it...they’re no longer my favorite band. I know, shocker right? Who is my favorite band now? Matchbox Twenty. They came on the music scene back in the mid to late 1990s. Their first album “Yourself or Someone Like You” came out in late 1996, and a few of the more popular songs on that album were “Long Day”, “3 A.M.”, and “Push”. Then came their album “Mad Season” in 2000, and there are too many great songs to list on that one. The album “More Than You Think You Are” came in 2002. Then they vanished for a while. A few members did their solo gigs, and in 2007, they came out with a greatest hits album that had a few new songs.

I was really excited for their new album that came out just a few weeks ago. It’s called “North”, and I absolutely love it. I don’t listen to “real” radio anymore, but their first single that’s on the radio is called “She’s So Mean”. I bought the album on iTunes, and that purchase came with the “She’s So Mean” video. I’ve also subscribed to their YouTube channel.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8WLa6umgdw&w=560&h=315]

So, 10 years between albums, and they’re still fantastic. I was tempted to switch my favorite band 10 years ago, but they vanished. Now that they’re back, I’ve switched.

I still like Bon Jovi, don’t get me wrong, but they’re nowhere near the same as they used to be. Time for a change.

All right, time to switch the laundry, and get more stuff done. And drink my iced caramel macchiato from Starbucks. Caffeine is a must today.

That book post that I mentioned a few days ago is coming this week, so be on the look out. In the meantime, keep moving!

Who’s your favorite music group?

Do The iPad Dance!

What, you may ask, is the iPad dance? Well, it’s when you have your iPad (or any tablet) in your lap, and a muscle in your leg decides to go crazy and spasm. A muscle just above my right knee has been going nuts since Friday morning. If I’m not doing anything, it will jump and twitch. It stops whenever I get up and do something, but as soon as I sit down, it’ll start back up again. It doesn’t hurt, it just feel strange.

I was on the couch last night  with my iPad, and it was going crazy. The iPad was dancing, and I just started laughing. It was comical. So, that’s how you do the iPad dance. Hehehe.

I completed my workout yesterday, and I’ve already gotten today’s workout done also. Yesterday I did my strength training as well as a mile on the elliptical. I again met my goal of doing it in 300 revolution chunks. The last 300 chunk Friday was a bit rough, but I pushed through. Then I did the last 100 with no problem. Today’s mile was pretty strong, which surprised me. I thought I might get tired around the 900 rev mark. But I didn’t tire until the last 300 chunk again.

Here are Friday and Saturday’s stats.

Friday:

Strength Training:

Regular Routine

Cardio - Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 31:58

Saturday:

Cardio - Elliptical:
Distance - 1 Mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 32:10

I had a minor distraction today with the elliptical. Right before I was going to get on, Abby decided to hop in my lap. She didn’t stay long, but I couldn’t say no. I actually took a picture of her since my iPod was sitting right there. Could you say no to a face this cute?

I think not. But as soon as she got down, I got busy. She decided to take a nap on the couch while I did my thing. She’s still snoozing, and it’s been a few hours. Ah, to be a cat. Keep moving.

What Day Is It?

My days are confused. It feels like Thursday. It’s Friday! I did indeed take Thursday off. Back at it today though. Bright and early. I’ve got strength training on the agenda and one mile on the elliptical. Shouldn’t be a problem.

Don’t really have much to say today, so let’s get to it. I’ll post again tomorrow with today’s stats.

Rest Day Thursday

I don’t really plan my rest days for any particular day of the week. I let my body tell me when it needs a break. Today might be a rest day. I haven’t totally decided yet, but I’m pretty sure. I usually have one or two rest days a week. My legs aren’t overly tired, but they’re getting there. I’ll know for sure when I do my morning stretches. While the cute picture above isn't exactly how I'll be spending a rest day, I'll eventually end up on the couch at some point this evening.

Wednesday’s wonky day went pretty well. I had that package I needed to wait for, and luckily it showed up a little after 10 in the morning. While I waited, I emptied the dishwasher, re-loaded it, and straightened up the kitchen a bit. I also managed to read some of the current book I’m reading. I’m planning on doing a post soon about some of the books I’ve read in the last several months. Some have been really good.

I had lunch first, and then did my strength training. Remember how I said I’d probably get my strength training done before breakfast? Didn’t happen. Other things came first, and well, like I said, life happens. I did get everything done (I never did vacuum, but that’s OK), including all of my laundry.

The mile on the elliptical went smoothly. I again met my goal of 300 revolution breaks. It got steadily harder after the half mile mark, but I pushed on. That’s why I’m thinking it may be a rest day today too. I might be sluggish and slow on the elliptical today. Here are my stats from yesterday.

Strength Training: Regular Routine

Cardio - Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good
Injury - None
Time - 31:55

Keep moving! Listen to your body and take a rest day if you need one.

Squeeze Exercise In When You Can

It seems like over the last six months, it’s been harder to complete my exercise routine. I’m not sure what changed, but when I first began this weight loss journey (now fitness journey since I’m at a healthy weight), I was able to complete my entire routine, and was showered and dressed by 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning. Now, it feels like I can’t get started.

I have more morning email to get through (newsletters, forum posts, and the like), and I now get started exercising around 7:30 and 8:00 (am usually out of bed by 6:00). I have a hard time completing my elliptical workout if I don’t eat. I need that food to get me through. My morning coffee won’t cut it unfortunately. So I wait until I eat breakfast before I jump on it.

It takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to do 30 minutes of elliptical work. I need to cut my breaks down to shorter amounts of time, and I am working on it. I feel like I’m under a time crunch, and I don’t know why. I know everything will get done that needs to get done, I just have this expectation of when I want to get it done.

Well, life doesn’t work that way. Life is erratic and inconvenient. Surprise visits from family, bad night’s sleep, or whatever else might make it difficult to stay on a normal schedule, things happen. You need to do things when you can. If you can’t get in your morning workout, then do it in the afternoon. If it comes down to it, do it in the evening. Just get it done.

Take today. It’s Wednesday. I have strength training scheduled along with a mile on the elliptical. Total workout time is probably an hour and a half. Do I prefer to do it all in one chunk? Sure! Will it? Probably not today. I will most likely get my strength training done before breakfast. But my elliptical workout might have to wait. I’m expecting a FedEX delivery sometime today, and they need a signature. So I need to be where I can hear someone knock on the door. If I’m at my desk, I can hear the truck pull up, but it will take me a while to get to the door. So I need to be out in the other room before the guy knocks and runs (why does it feel like they run around the corner as soon as you open the door?). So that also means, any writing work will have to wait.

My point is, my elliptical workout will happen, just not when I want it to. It might be 2 in the afternoon before I do it, and if it’s that late, I’m already preparing for an internal argument with myself. It seems like 2 PM hits and the exercise window has closed. There’s no window. If there is a window, it’s open all the time. I have to suck it up and do it.

I think I’ve convinced myself to exercise no matter what time it is (well, maybe not after 6 PM, hehehe).

I was a good girl yesterday, and got in my mile after the webinar and after I had lunch. And I’m actually writing this post at around 6 PM Tuesday. I’m squeezing writing in when I can too. I have a certain amount of things to accomplish in a day, and I have to squish it in where I can. Little bit here, little bit there, and before you know it, it’s all done.

I did my mile, and I made my goal of doing it in 300 revolution chunks. We’ll see how today goes. Here are my stats for yesterday.

Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 32:00

Move when you can, just keep moving!

Busy Bee Tuesday

Been somewhat busy, but at the same time, it feels like I’ve gotten nothing done. I had a free writing webinar I attended at 10:00 this morning, and that’s normally around the time I’m ending my workout. I decided to hold off on the elliptical until after it was over.

The webinar was basically a recap of things I already knew. It was about how to find online freelance (telecommuting, home-based work, and that sort of thing) jobs, and how to avoid scams. Being a freelance writer, I like to keep on top of things. But, like I said, I basically knew about everything they were talking about. One thing I did learn is that there are a lot of scams out there. I think they said 1 in 60 to 70 telecommuting-type jobs is a legitimate offer. Yikes, that’s scary. Use your common sense when it comes to finding online work. So far, I’ve had no problems (knock on wood).

So, Monday’s workout went OK. I did my strength training, but never got around to the elliptical. Oops. At least I did something. Tuesday’s goal is to do a mile on the elliptical, in 300 revolution increments. I’ll let you know how I did tomorrow.

Keep moving!

Mileage Monday

Another Mileage Monday heading your way. I’m still chugging along the virtual walk. Haven’t made 500 miles yet, but I’m getting there. This past week, I sort of slacked on my exercise. Not sure what exactly happened, but nothing got done. Ah well, it’s the start of a new week, and it’s time to get it started.

Maybe I should post a goal a day. I’m actually writing this post on Sunday, so my goal for Sunday is one mile on the elliptical. My other goal is to do it in chunks of 300 revolutions. I’ve been stuck at 200 revolutions at a time before taking a break, so it’s time I bumped it up. I managed to do it the other day, so it is do-able.

My goal for Monday is to do strength training and one mile on the elliptical. I’ll let you all know how I do. We’ll see. Here are more pictures from the site in the meantime.

Mile 460.6 (Elliptical for .5 mile)                            Mile 461.2 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

              

Mile 464.2 (WATP for 3.1 mile)                             Mile 464.8 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

               

Mile 465.2 (Elliptical for .5 mile)                            Mile 465.8 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

               

 

(photo credit - Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Sunday's workout went very well. Here are my stats:

Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 31:58

Keep moving!

Found An Active Blogger

I always get excited when I find an active blogger who writes about cerebral palsy. I just happened to stumble upon Tina's blog Living with Cerebral Palsy: Living and Working with Cerebral Palsy. She has spastic cerebral palsy, so it's not exactly the same as mine. I did however relate to quite a few things in this particular post: Unforgiving. I just skimmed the first page of her blog site, and she is actively writing. I subscribed to her blog just now through the email subscription option. Woohoo! I love finding new people with cerebral palsy to learn what they deal with and how they deal with it.

Mileage Monday

Ok, it’s time to finally get caught up with the pictures from the virtual walk site. For a while, each Monday I’ll be uploading about 6 photos. I went through my saved pictures and I have about two months worth of “Mileage Monday” posts. So let’s get to it. There are some good ones coming up.

In the last several months I’ve passed through a few cities and towns in VA. In order, I’ve gone through Cedar Springs (Wythe county), Sugar Grove (Smyth county), Troutdale (Wythe county), Konnarock (Washington county), and Damascus (Washington county).

I am currently about 6.5 mile away from Meadowview, VA in Washington county. My total mileage to date is 490.4 miles. Coming up on the big 500. I’ll do a post on that day for sure. For now, here are the first of many pictures.

Mile 451 (3.1 miles of WATP)                                       Mile 454 (3.1 miles of WATP)

                      

Mile 455 (1 mile on elliptical)                                        Mile 456 (1 mile on elliptical)

                      

Mile 459.2 (3.1 miles of WATP)                                     Mile 460 (1 mile on elliptical)

                      

My Absence Explained

So, you may have wondered what the heck happened to me the last several months. Sometime around mid-May, I pulled a muscle, or several muscles in my back on the left side. I still don't know what I did exactly, but I had four gigantic knots. One up by my left shoulder, one right below my armpit near my ribs, one near my kidney, and one right above my left hip.

The one by my ribs was the one that was giving me the most problems. Somehow, I believe the muscle knot shifted one of my ribs out of place, because it was hard to take a deep breath. It hurt every time I tried, and I couldn't yawn for about three or four days. After a few days of not being able to breathe deeply, I broke out the massager (duh!), and worked out the knots. Well, it worked, but then the muscle spasms began. Once the knot relaxed, my muscle started to spasm, and it made it pretty tough to breathe. The only way I could comfortably breathe was if I stood up and raised my left arm over my head.

It was late at night and there was no way I was going to fall asleep. It actually started to spasm when I laid down. My husband had the brilliant idea to give me a straight shot of rum. Best idea ever! However, I felt like I was a dragon breathing fire when I downed the rum. Bleh! Straight rum is potent. It worked though. I was able to get to sleep, and there were no more spasms.

The next issue to fix itself was the shifted ribs. That was sort of freaking me out. I still couldn't take a deep breath without it hurting. I was about to call the doctor for an appointment the next day, but as I was putting laundry into the dryer, I felt something shift. Instant relief. I could breathe again. And yawn! I hadn't had a full yawn for days. It was still tender, and I couldn't do much, but I could at least breathe again.

For the next several months I took it easy with my exercise. I basically did none. Any little movement, and I would feel a twinge in my ribs, like things were shifting and moving around. Once it started to feel a bit better, I started trying to do things again. I was able to my leg exercises, but the strength training was a no-go for a while. My ab routine was pretty much nixed also. As was the elliptical. The arm pole movement wasn't nice.

It took me a good three months until I didn't feel any twinges. It was around the beginning or the middle of August by the time I was fully healed. I believe that was when I was able to do my full routine with no problems. My abs felt really tired after the first full workout, too. But I didn't care. I was just glad to be better again.

As a result,I have added a stretch to my stretching routine. I either stand up or sit cross-legged, raise both arms over my head, and bend sideways at the waist. This stretches the lat muscles which was what I pulled. I've also added a new strength exercise with my weights. Stand up and bend forward at my waist with the weights hanging in front of me. Then pull the weights up to my armpits. Sort of like if you're pulled weeds maybe.

Those additions seem to have helped a bit to strengthen my weak areas. The last few days I’ve been having a few twinges, but I think I just slept on my side too long or slept on it wrong. Hopefully that will go away soon.

I am back though, and am slowly trying to get back to where I was. I’m almost ready to start doing two sets of my strength training exercises again. And I am doing a full mile here and there on the elliptical. I at least do a half mile every time I get on. I need to start back up with my Walk Away the Pounds DVD. That seemed to improve my endurance when I did it.

Keep moving no matter what though. A little movement is better than none.

 

Another Pet Loss

Well, this isn’t how I planned to make my blogging comeback, but life happens like that.

As the title of this blog reads, we have lost another pet. Our second cat Ashley, presented the same signs as our first cat Paws did in the end. It’s taken me a little while to get this post written. Not a happy subject, so I kept delaying it. I didn’t expect to have to go through this so soon after the first time. I thought we had another two or three years. But, sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I don’t know if it was my imagination, but not long after we took Paws in, Ashley seemed to become more active. The move active she was, the more weight she lost. This was a good thing. Ashley was a very long, and very tall cat. She was also very fat. She became more active, and looked like a healthy cat for a while. But the last few months, she looked a bit too skinny.

She was still playing and running around a lot more than usual, but it was starting to show. What really got me a bit concerned was the fact that she was tolerating our third cat Abby more than usual. Normally, if Ashley and Abby got close, one or both of them would hiss and turn the other way. Or there would be the “stare down”, and they would stare at each other for a long time. In the last few weeks though, Abby was more friendly, and was grooming Ashley also. Abby would follow Ashley around from time to time to see what she was doing.

A few days before we took Ashley in to get checked out, I had both cats on my lap at the same time. Abby was on my lap, and Ashley was beside me with her head on my leg. They were face to face for a while with now problem.

A few days later, we took her in to confirm what we already knew. The vet said the exact same thing as he did with Paws. She was severely dehydrated, was in kidney failure, and her liver was also failing. We decided to do the humane thing and had her put to sleep. The vet said if she was younger, it might be a different story. Could have her on a special diet, or whatever, but, she was 13 years old, so it was best.

We did not stay like we stayed with Paws. It was a hard decision. I was torn. My husband absolutely did not want to stay. He still has that final image of Paws, and didn’t want to do that again. I think he’s right. It’s been a bit easier to get over the loss this time as opposed to the first. It was hard walking out of that room though, knowing she was still in the back. They let me hold her for a while and then took her into the back.

One thing about not staying is I wondered when they would do it. I would think to myself “Did they do it yet?” I did the same thing with my childhood dog, Tipsy. I didn’t go to the vet that day, but the outcome was sad. The rest of the day I wondered if it had been done yet. In the end though, I think I made the right choice with Ashley.

So, we’re now down to one cat. And she is healthy. Active, playful, and still agile. Abby is about 10 years old, so I don’t expect to go through this again for some time. To close, here’s a picture of Ashley just a few days before we took her in.

Ashley: July 1999 to September 18, 2012