Holy mother --- OUCH!

So for the last two and a half weeks, I've been having lower back pain and glute pain. I've tried to see if I could work out the problem through self massage, hot tub, ice packs, stretching, professional massage therapy, rest and diversity in training. The issue does not represent walking, only running.

I wonder if something is wrong with my form -- except, why would it bother me now? I've done a lot more running and a lot harder practicing in the last 10 months. In fact since March, I've mellowed on the running and have put more effort into cross training.

Is it the shoes? I just bought mine in the middle of May, and I've been running in the same brand July September. This is my third set of shoes since then, so I'm pretty consistent about replacing them every 250-300 miles.

Are the muscles weak? Mmm, I just finished up a series of personal training sessions that I got with my VO2 assessment, where I felt pretty good about my strength, and I've been keeping it up through Body Blast and individual work at home and the gym. I've been slowly increasing my load in my fitness classes, and I'm constantly working on the core work taught to me in pilates and training.

Old injury? Well, yes, I did mess up my lower back and a bunch of the attached muscles when I was 16 playing soccer. A stellar performance at a Chicago tournament landed me in physical therapy for 12 weeks and led me to have to take my ACT and SAT tests standing up in the middle of the cafeteria (no lie). And from time to time, every 2-3 years it does act up, usually when I do something stupid like bend over to pick up a sock.

I always attributed this situation with being overweight. But what if that's just what this is? The every few years it acts up and then goes away? But what if it's not? So, tomorrow I am going to give a call to my primary care doc and have her run the movement tests on my legs, hopefully, she'll take a scan and just confirm that it's all soft tissue issues and then off I'll go to PT, where I'm hoping, now that I'm way more in touch with my body than I used to be that we can figure out what my problem is and get me working on it right away. I'm happy that I can at least walk and swim and bike without pain. But right now, I'm lying on my back with my knees elevated in my bed because I totally can't straighten my back due to muscle spasms near my spine and in my glutes.

Not fun... not fun at all. Getting old is a bitch. Seriously.

Mother/Son Camping Adventure

KTDID  came over to try out MacTroll's smoked BBQ tonight. It was pretty good. I made a red vinegar sauce for it and we put it on sandwiches. Then she and I set up the tent in the backyard. The hope was that we'd try backyard camping for a second time... the first was a failed attempt in the Baltimore cousins' backyard where there were too many spooky noises.

Tonight's issues -- "The engines, trains and fireworks are too loud!"

So, in we went at 9:30 p.m. after an hour of reading in the tent. We read several picture books that need to be returned to the library and our second chapter book. (We're currently on chapter 5 of How to Eat Fried Worms.)

Tomorrow we're headed up to my parents' house. We're having lunch with my Mom at Rock Cut and then heading over to my Dad's. Dad thinks he's receing some tickets for a local kiddie fair, so the two of us will probably take X-man. Then we're all going to fireworks in Rockford at Tinker Cottage.

Monday is my anniversary with MacTroll. We'll have been together for 18 years. If I think about that too much, my brain hurts. Where did the time go? Oh, yeah, into a bunch of crazy adventures.

:-)

Flooring Update

So, we're on Day 5 of floor installation. It took two days to do the living room, but the upstairs is taking longer, obviously. Here's what's done this evening, including the landing on the stairs, the upstairs hallway (minus the linen closets) the master bedroom (minus the master closet). 

My Unplanned Staycation

So this morning at 4:30, I should have been in the shower trying to wake up before jumping in the blue car (our designated airport shuttle) and taking off on a 6:30 a.m. flight to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands to see my friend the Doctor.

The Doctor lives in St. Croix in a lovely house that she and her significant other have spent the last several years updating and making all kinds of awesome while she teaches at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Alas, I was not on that flight because the ugly storm that blew through pretty much the entire mainland of the United States and parts of Canada yesterday canceled my flight from Champaign to Chicago... which made making my morning connection impossible and all later flights were full. I even tried to see about getting a Lex bus at 2 a.m. to haul my butt up there in the crazy storms to make it. But no.

So I have miles and am rescheduling for the end of July (once they put the miles back in MacTroll's freaking account). But still, I was packed. I was ready. I wanted a beer and a float in the ocean, and I wanted to forget about the current state of me for a while. I was ready for vacation, and it feels like it got ripped out from under me.

Instead of pouting too much (I'll admit there were sobs of "It's not fair. Why does this always happen to me? Blah, blah, blah"), I pulled it together and decided to do two things I hadn't done yet this summer including, 1) Going blueberry picking at Pontious Farm in White Heath  and 2) Go shopping for rugs for our new wood floors in Ikea, which I was supposed to do until my house was plagued by a stomach bug.

It was too beautiful of a day to spend it inside... so I went blueberry picking today and came home with just shy of 5 lbs. Blueberry Burgers anyone?

Killing Trees

Flooring Surfaces started working on our living room floor this week. We're pretty much replacing all the carpet in our house (minus the basement and the guest room) with hardwood maple floors.

Here are some before shots... (Don't you like how you can tell where our bed was by the square section that is darker here? It's all cat fur... Maya is happy to model how pretty the fur looks actually on the cat versus in little tufts under our bed.)

The carpet in the living room had gotten so dirty it was brown rather than gray. And we all know how much I am not a fan of earth tones. (Of course, it didn't help that I walked in on Riley, who countersurfs, opening a container of Hershey's Cocoa in the middle of the floor and dumping it everywhere two weeks ago). I vacuumed what I could said, "Whatever, this carpet is outta here anyway."

Here's the work so far in the living room. We also got another 12" piece of slate tile added in front of the fire place. One row didn't make any sense to me (see photo of fireplace above) , but two... two just screams "nice." :-) We also got four more shelves made for each side of the fireplace. You'll see them appear when the painters are done with their part of the work in a couple weeks. 

A Week in My Bitter Pants

I spent this week being a punching bag for myself. They're not the kind of bruises I can show you. My whole aura right now is highly sensitive and tender. I've been over reacting to everything. I've been critical. I've been harsh. And when I do that long enough to myself, I start to do it to other people. Because, damn it, if I'm all wrong and ugly, shouldn't they be too? I mean really? Freaking perky, happy, effing people.

It is totally a week I can blame on girl hormones and sleep deprivation. Brain chemistry is a curious thing, often, unfortunately, a genetic trait, and recently, I've been looking into taking my education courses and seeing if I can map an educational career with children based on nutrition and fitness, combining my professional interest with my personal devotion. The best option, my most favorite, of course, is to become a Pediatric Dietician. I was always an above average student. I loved chemistry in high school and college. I was good at biology in college. But I never really was into science when I was younger. I mean, I liked animals. I liked nature. But the words Organic Chemistry and Food Science never really turned me on.

Now, they scare me. I'm not sure why. So I'm riddled with self-talk about how I'm not smart enough to complete such a degree before I've even started taking basic pre-requisites. I know I don't fail at everything. I'm actually a very good student. I want to learn -- to learn -- not to get a grade any more, and teachers can tell that about me and appreciate it. I'm smarter and more well-read and aware of the world than the average bear. I'm smarter than a 5th grader. I get that. I KNOW it. But I don't FEEL it. And knowing something intellectually, and feeling valued, worthwhile and brilliant at your core are two completely different things... I'm putting an * here. Remember it.

Finding a program and having it fit to my lifestyle is currently an issue. I'd likely have to do an online program, and I'd have to do it full-time.

I also had to miss the parent/teacher conference about X-man regarding how we can best prepare him if we'd like to consider sending him to Next Generation Primary School. Since X-man was ill that day and finds his greatest comfort in me, I stayed home. I sent MacTroll with my list of observations and issues, and went over them with him, and he came back and told me how the conversation went. But at the same time, I really wanted to be there. I always like to hear things with my own ears.

The teachers sent home a list of things for X-man to work on regarding social/emotional growth. A lot of the issues he might lick by the start of kindergarten, but I'm not sure he'll master by the time they do observations in October... for the following school year. He's particularly intense, our son. And manipulative (my words, not the teachers :-). But we all agree, he has moments of learned helplessness that are a barrier in the classroom.* (Notice the Asterik? Where could he possibly have inherited this trait?)

Academically, though, he's doing pretty well. We have to work on counting to 50 this summer and the fine motor skills that come with writing. I think the more time he spends with the bigger kids in his 4-year classroom seeing what they can do the more driven he'll be to write. Right now he can write his own name -- when he wants to. And he actually does a good job -- when he wants to. When he doesn't want to, he just makes a bunch of mess after an X... kind of like the mess after the J when his father writes his name. He's also beginning to sight read, which has been a lot of fun. He's best at logos and road signs.

I haven't been able to exercise all of this week due to illness, too. I went out at 6 a.m. this morning trying to get back in the saddle, because I know it's going to be gross and hot today. I ran 4 miles, but wanted to do 5, but ended up walking the last one. It wasn't fast. It wasn't fun. But I got it done and burned 650 calories. I'm hoping since MacTroll is, strangely, home for two weeks in a row that it'll be easier next week when no one is sick.

Right now, I just want to be able to get through the day with a little more Loosey-like positivity. I'm hoping the dopamine from the workout will help with that. Because clearly trying to use food to feel good this week made me only feel worse about myself.

Case of the Mondays

Since everyone had a Facebook status of being grouchy this morning, I figured I'd vent my ugly on the blog. Around 9:30 p.m. last night I ended up with MacTroll's stomach bug. In addition, someone apparently left our bathroom door open, so Clawdio peed in our shower. And it was particularly cat urine smelling, but even the rankness of that couldn't get the vomiting to start. And I needed it to start because my belly was swollen to the point where I thought I was going to implode.

Five hours later, I was empty and crippled and exhausted. This morning, I woke up feeling much better in that I knew the vomiting was over. But I felt like someone had hit me with a truck. I had a headache from crying while vomiting. So I've been in bed napping on and off and hoping that X-man doesn't get it. So much for us vacating the house all day Saturday and not being around MacTroll so we wouldn't get it.

Now I have to also hope we didn't give it to our dinner guests last night who are moving tomorrow from Champaign to Lincoln, NE. (Dr. Dave and Ms. K, I swear if I had known I had it I would have canceled!)

Onto other information, every day for the last -- who am I kidding -- for forever we've been getting afternoon thunderstorms. It's not like I live at the Grand Canyon and can enjoy some awesome desert light show. Instead, it just bums us out. We got sent home early from the pool on Saturday, which made X-man really upset. As much as he loves playing and replaying Trouble in our living room, he looked outside and said, "Mom, I want it to be summer." (He means sunny, but I totally get where he's coming from.)

Tomorrow, MacTroll gets his father's day gift early -- We're taking his car in to get detailed. He's so excited about it. On Thursday, MacTroll has a meeting near Schaumburg, so if things go okay, he's going to drop X-man and I off at the Lego Discovery Center, go to his meeting and then meet up with us afterwards to take a trip to Ikea to look at rugs. I guess that means, I need to measure where all of our new wood floors will be installed. The wood is supposed to get delivered this week. Installation should start on the 22nd.

This weekend my Dad is coming down for a visit, which will be nice. X-man hasn't seen him since Easter.

But the big news is that a week from Thursday, I'll be on a plane, by myself, headed to St. Croix in the USVI to see my friend Dr. Robin for four days. She's so going to drink me under the table. :-)