Back from the Abyss, at Least for Today

Well, hello there!

Thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth, did you?

I guess that's fair considering how (in)visible I've been on this blog this year.

General news: budgeting for our "vacation" has put quite a hindrance on participating in any events, as has my business being very much still in a building phase. My husband did a giant crazy race in late June, which required full-family travel, which meant time off which meant more budget hit, and so on and so forth.

My back has been...okay. I still deal with pain all the time, especially in the mornings. I've found that I really can't take any pain medication without it invoking migraines and of course, since I'd taken medication, I can't take my migraine stuff simultaneously because of the "slight" risk of side-effect seizures.

However, even without the pain medication, I'm still getting the (I think) heat-induced migraines, so when those pop up the migraine stuff works well, but I hate being useless.

In April, probably a week or two after my last triathlon, I decided to go gluten-free. This was a long thought-out decision and based on a number of things. Waaaay back in 2001, I went on a cleansing diet to address some pretty severe food allergies that was preventing me from eating the majority of fruits and vegetables that were in my diet. It was extremely strict. I managed it for two months, I felt great, I lost weight, and it (mostly) treated my allergies. I was able to eat apples for the first time in about 6 years, among other things.

Ideally, based on how good I felt then and just in general how much better I know that diet was for me, I know that's what I should be striving for (or something very close). However, in the past when I've tried to go back, I've managed for 3-4 days maximum and then completely fallen off the wagon and rebounded in the opposite direction.

I had made several adjustments to my diet already. After self-diagnosing anxiety (I had no clinical basis for this, but it was an ongoing issue of emotion that I could only describe as anxiety, which was starting to have physical manifestations), I took out caffeine. Anxiety was gone. I dismissed it as mental, but I also wasn't craving my coffees, so I didn't think much of it until a couple of instances where I had coffee again and *anxiety* started feeling like it was eating at my chest.

So coffee was out. I didn't eat much chocolate, so I didn't think taking that out would be too difficult, but suddenly it seemed like chocolate was everywhere once I decided not to eat it. I didn't know if it was that I hadn't realized how much I was consuming or if I just really missed the bits that I was consuming, but either way, dropped that. Other than dropping extra sugar, I didn't really see a physical effect to it until once again, a couple months without and a cup of cocoa and WHAM. Migraine. A couple more tied events like that and I don't miss the chocolate--and when I think I do, I just think about a migraine, and suddenly it's not so appealing any more. (I still get migraines, but have eliminated the pain medication and chocolate-induced ones.)

Caffeine and chocolate were small starts, but not enough. I was also facing some major fatigue issues--I was needing more sleep than my 5-year-old. I don't just mean I was a little tired here and there. I mean, 3 or 4 o'clock rolled around and I didn't want to be driving because I felt I was dangerously sleepy. Naps were necessary. And although I could have been sleeping better at night, even when I got a good night's rest, it wasn't helping.

Combine this with some different things that kind of coalesced in my brain and I decided to take just one thing--one major thing--out of my diet. I decided on gluten.

Oh. My. Gosh. Those first couple of weeks were hard. I told the Moroccan not to bring home pizza (which he managed to respect, thankfully) and to avoid brining home the piles of desserts he likes (which he mostly respected). After that, not so bad--and I started feeling better and less tired.

And I began losing roughly a pound a week.

There were days the gluten-free was SO HARD. And then there were times that it gave me an excuse to order the steak instead, so I was fine. I did have a pizza meltdown at a friend's house--which I regretted enough the next day to not cave again. And I went on a business trip to New York. The Moroccan was convinced I wouldn't stay gluten-free on my trip, but it wasn't an issue at all. I had no problems and he was impressed.

So I've now lost a little bit of weight. It's going dramatically slowly, which on the one hand is frustrating, but on the other hand I'm hoping is a sign of permanence. Although I had to go shopping for some smaller clothes, I'm still frustrated because most of the weight seems to be ocming off of my hands, feet, and face.

Which means my feet hurt because my shoes don't fit properly, my wedding ring keeps falling off, and people look at my face, tilt their head to the side, squish up their eyebrows, and say, "Did you get a haircut?"

So visible progress, even if people aren't sure what it is they are seeing different.

I'm still visiting Amazing Dr. Amy. This week when I was in getting my usual treatment, with new bonuses of a cold laser treatment and some other adjustments she hasn't done before, she was telling me about a seminar she attended over the weekend. For anyone out there who is a chiropractic skeptic, I need to stress that at least in the case of Dr. Amy, I have far more faith than any other doctor I've seen for my back. It is not whack-crack, please come back. She spends an hour with me, working on soft tissues, doing muscle testing, joint testing, applying a variety of modalities and explaining all of them in a manner that even if I weren't an LMT, I would understand them.

So when she was talking about a "new" (to me) exercise regime for low back pain that was presented at the seminar, she told me she spent the whole weekend thinking about me and saying, "THIS is what she needs to do!"

It's simple and I'm not going to go into all of the principles and reasons why she thinks this will be great for me, but the primary one was my back stuff and the idea that almost anyone can do something for 30 seconds. Here it is: Sprint for 30 seconds, walk for 4 minutes, then repeat 4 times. Do this 3-4 times a week. For the time being, don't do anything else.

For you non-math geeks out there who haven't already calculated this, that's 18 minutes of exercise--so a total of less than an hour (if three times a week, or just over an hour if four times a week).

Also convenient for busy schedules, kids, etc.

Today was my first attempt at this. What's cool is that when I started this two years ago, I wouldn't have been able to walk to the school where I went to do this, so that's a bonus right there. However, I did not plan today so well. I took my daughter and dog with me and they were less-than-helpful. I did manage to do it, although my sprint is pathetic and then made worse by an uneven surface that nearly bit me several times. I'm not that sore (for the moment), although my feet hurt, but I attribute that to the foot size change and shoe fit issue more than running.

We'll see how this goes.

Just Another Race

Today was triathlon #4.

I ran around like a madwoman packing last night. Since it has been 10 months since my last triathlon, I almost felt like I was starting from scratch again. I was terrified I'd leave something important at home, like my bike.

I was also feeling horribly unprepared. I haven't trained nearly enough lately as it's been challenging to fit into my schedule. I really do like the late-night swim workouts as it's really nice to have "me" time at the end of the day, but there's only a couple of nights a week that works for my family and the days that it does, "stuff" has been coming up lately.

I used to not work out/blame not working out if I couldn't go at night. Since some of the reasons I couldn't work out were actually valid, I had to start finding other ways to train. Some of them were utter failures, like the day I decided to try and get in a swim while my daughter was at preschool. Know what? That's exactly when they do the hour-long water aerobics class at my gym. I may try that another day, but I really needed lap time, so I bailed, went home, and walked her home from school.

I've spent time on my bike trainer and tried riding outside with my daughter in the trailer.

Can we just say right now, that I am the Queen of Flats? Out of four possible tires (two on the bike and two on the trailer), guess how many flats I got on that trip?

Four.

Seriously, this is ridiculous. And it did nothing to inspire confidence that I could make it through a triathlon without a bike issue.

Anyway, I got about two hours sleep because the dog needed out and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I just shut off my alarm at 4:59 and got up. Had breakfast, loaded my bike in the car, and took off.

I did not like how tired I was on the drive. I was worried not that I wouldn't make it through the event, but that I would be too tired to drive myself home. I made it there fine, checked in, got bodymarked, and set up my transition space. Realized I forgot flip flops to go from the swim to transition, but couldn't do much about it then and decided I'd just let my feet freeze on the walk since it wasn't too far.

I was all proud of myself that I had packed everything so well (except the flip flops), put things in a locker for post-event shower and change, and walked back out to transition to finalize and double-check.

I then shed my socks and shoes and lined them up. Barefoot, I headed into the pool, nearly an hour early. Plenty of time to relax, warm up, and be ready to go.

Except...hmmm...something didn't look right. All the athletes in there were men. I went and checked the lanes and starts. Apparently, despite that this was the women's pool last year, it was the men's pool this year. So I headed out to find the women's pool. My feet were utterly freezing by time I'd walked almost all the way there. I headed back to my transition space, picked up my running shoes and socks, put them on and decided I'd sacrifice the time it took to put them on in the interest of having feet that were not numb for the bike ride.

Oh. Did I forget to mention that it was 35 degrees outside?

The swim started well, but I felt soooo sloooow. I don't know if it was because I felt like I was trying to keep up with my lane mates or because I'm not used to swimming in the morning. I ended up doing the last couple of laps in backstroke.

I did finish in about 12 minutes. Unfortunately, since I had to put on my shoes, get out of the building and go about 25 yards before I crossed the transition mat, this is not what my official race time reflects. Thank goodness I was just racing myself and no one else.

As I was walking the *very long* (I estimate about .2 miles) distance to the transition area, I saw a childhood friend that I haven't seen in years, who was volunteering at the race. Then a little while later, I realized i'd dropped one of my bike gloves and had to run back to get it. The running did not go well as I was still a bit wobbly from the swim.

Transition went okay, but I have to say that I really don't care for my bike shoes. They're kinda narrow (and they were the widest ones I could find when I bought them) and they are actually kinda hard to get onto my feet. To top it off, my socks were all soggy since I put them on straight out of the pool and was dripping all over the place.

The bike portion went (by my standards) really well. The racers were fairly well spaced out from the swim. I have to say though, that last year I was passed. And passed. And passed. And passed I don't know how many times because I had a broken rear derailleur. It was awful and frustrating. This year, I was only passed by 4 women. But I passed 3! I got passed by a number of men as well, but again, *nothing* like last year.

I didn't even have any problems with my bike.

My toes were freezing though by the end as even though the temperature had risen to maybe 40 degrees, there was a touch of wind breezing through the vents in my shoes and turning my toes into icicles.

I got off the bike before transition and urgh. I love my bike, I love the saddle because it doesn't hurt my um, undercarraige while I'm riding, but it does press right on the origins of my adductor muscles. Meaning that when I get off the bike, those stabilizing muscles for walking are...less than stable.

I waddled in to transition, both because I don't move swiftly walking in my bike shoes and because my muscles were still adjusting. I took my time in transition because I was trying to get my muscles to chill out.

Now, last year when I did this race, I jogged the 5K. And it was the first 5K I'd ever done in my life, so I was pretty proud of myself.

Unfortunately, my back still hadn't recovered from the morning of crawling and while my back is better enough that I was doing a triathlon, it was not well enough to run.

Yeah, those women I passed when I was on the bike? One of them passed me on the run three times.

Again, good thing I'm only racing myself. I got most of the weirdness I was feeling in my adductor muscles worked out on the walk, but the pain was just too much every time I tried to run.

I didn't have any family with me at this event, but the cool part was that my childhood friend had come to the finish line and high-fived me as I crossed.

I just went straight to the locker room, showered, changed, then packed up and drove home, where I promptly went to sleep.

My husband and I had *good* tickets to a game tonight, and although I felt recovered enough to be at a game, we usually have to park about a 15-minute walk from the game and I just wasn't sure I was up for it.

So final "official" results for today vs. last year:

Segment	This year	Last year
Swim (500 yds, indoor)	13:26	12:58
Transition 1	7:27	3:15
Bike	53:03	1:15:54
Transition 2	3:59	2:58
Run (5K)	52:45	48:33
Overall	2:10:42	2:23:39

I'm not honestly thrilled with my performance and even though I didn't know my times as I left the race, I realized a huge thing as I was driving home.

This was the first race I've done without pain medication. On a related note, it's also the first race I've done that I didn't have a migraine afterward.

If nothing else, that is a huge accomplishment.

Migraine Land

Yeah.

The migraine totally didn't sleep off.

I couldn't sleep, tried some aleve and an ice pack on my neck, which helped, but not enough. I finally took a migraine pill this morning, called in late for my meeting, and drove when I was feeling a *little* better.

By *little* better, I mean that when I got to the meeting location (which I'd never been to before), the first thing I did was scope out where the restrooms were in case I had to make a stomach-initiated biohazard dash.

One of the guys at the meeting even teased me because I was so quiet for the first part of the day, which is, to say the least, a bit out of character for me.

Oddly, by the end of the day, I was feeling considerably better. Since these meetings usually *cause* migraines for me, it's a good thing it didn't get worse.

Not This Again

Since I've been absent in posting for so long, this is a catchup post, but one I thought relevant leading up to Triathlon #4.

I started Dragonboating again last month. For those of you unfamiliar, Dragonboating is a pretty big deal around here and there are a lot of clubs around the world that participate in this sport. I even have a cousin who has paddled on the US Master's team and competed internationally. She's the one who got me into the sport waaaay back in 2004. I had a blast and paddled for several years. Unfortunately, in late 2004 when I hurt my back, it made paddling rather difficult and painful and I had to step away. The last time I was seriously in a boat I wasn't even paddling--I "called" for some of my team practices while I was pregnant in 2007.

Dragonboating is not rowing. When you row, you have an oar, usually "locked" to the boat in some form. The rower puts the oar in the water behind them and then pulls the handle portion towards their body. The boat is moving in the direction of the rower's back. The oars are oriented horizontally (mostly). Dragonboating uses paddling technique where the paddler reaches the paddle forward in front of them, it is oriented vertically (when done correctly), and the paddler faces the direction the boat is moving. It involves some twisting of the torso which was part of what made me have to quit paddling before as it was just too much for my back.

Since my back has been considerably better (not good, just better), I thought I'd try it out again this season. I've been doing well, and if anything, it seems to be helping to get in a different form of exercise. The drawbacks? My team practices at 6:00 in the morning twice a week.

I. Am. Not. A. Morning. Person.

So I've been reluctantly hauling myself out of bed to get to practice the past few weeks.

This morning though, there was no hauling to be had.

When I woke up at 5:00, I went to roll over to get out of bed and electrical-shock pain went through my entire back, abdomen, and legs. Occasionally when I wake up this happens. I take a few deep breaths and try to move s-l-o-w-l-y. Deep breathing and slow movement was not working. Any lower body muscle contraction was sending the electrical-shock pain currents through me. Unfortunately, my bladder had woken up and was being rather demanding, so I kept trying to move because my bladder is not particularly patient, especially in the morning.

It's kind of a good thing we don't have a bed frame right now because it meant I was close to the floor. I absolutely couldn't straighten, so I very slowly managed to ooze to my hands and knees. I actually crawled to the bathroom.

Once there, I cried a little because I felt so pathetic and I couldn't figure out how I was going to get myself up on to the toilet. I think there was a considerable amount of moaning as I maneuvered myself. But then I sat there for awhile when I was done, so I could recover enough to move off of it again.

I managed to ooze back to the floor and crawled back to the bedroom. Again grateful for no bed frame, I deep-breath, slow-moved myself back into a sidelying position, where I stayed awake and deep breathing until my husband woke up two hours later.

Which means yes, I skipped dragonboat practice. But considering I couldn't stand upright, I wasn't going to crawl out to my car (let alone crawl down the waterfront to get to the dock) to sit in a boat and not paddle.

The Moroccan kindly got me ice and aleve and a glass of water and I tried to rest some.

I drifted off and woke up a couple of hours later. I could (slowly) get to vertical, but all movement was still horribly painful (although the electric shock sensations were limited to when I moved too fast, as opposed to moving at all). I had massage clients scheduled for later in the day and was trying to figure out how, when I could barely stand up, I was going to give someone else a massage.

I finally called my husband at work and asked if he had any of his painkillers left from knee surgery. He said yes, and that I could have then if I needed it.

I took one.

About an hour later, it kicked in enough that I could move around again, although I had to be really careful with how I moved. But I could move.

I gave the massages, took one more pain pill later that night...and a couple hours later my back was fine, but I could feel a migraine coming on.

Unfortunately, since I can't take my migraine medication with certain painkillers (it could cause seizures) and I didn't really want to call the doctor and say, "Hey, I took some of my husband's high-level post-surgery narcotics without doctor's instructions and I know that's illegal, but can I take my migraine pills now?" I decided to go to bed and hope I could sleep it off.

Just a Little Ways To Go

I'm going to try to be positive here. In other words, possibly not terribly realistic.

It doesn't really matter what goals I have right now; a triathlon would be terribly difficult for me if I had to do one tomorrow (flat tires on my bike aside). I know I have to make up some lost ground from the last year--four months of being sick, four months of frustration trying to figure out what to do about Catalina (and then realizing it really wasn't in the budget) and then four months of simultaneous crazy busy schedule and lack of focus/motivation. To be clear, I'm not making excuses, just taking a look at where 2011 went.

Downhill.

So whatever my goals are now, I have a lot to do. And The Moroccan has agreed to train me for the Kilamanjaro goal.

One of my frustrations/complaints/excuses (take your pick; they're all accurate) over the past several months has been about Little Bug's bedtime and routine. We're a cosleeping family by choice. Our pediatrician fully supports it and for the most part, it has been the right path for us as parents. When I say "for the most part," there are two issues that have been challenging for me. 1) She likes to fall asleep WITH someone, and if I want her to go to bed early, that is usually me, I fall asleep with her and am not awake until the dog wants out. (I could go on and on about my sleep issues but that's another post. Or three.) 2) I spend a lot of time "resisting" the pushing she does as she snuggles, which I think irritates my back (as when I sleep alone I don't have that issue).

The big news in our household though is that a couple of weeks ago, Little Bug decided she wanted to sleep alone in her big girl bed. A tiny piece of my heart broke and The Moroccan was really sad about it, but overall it has been great for me. My back is already feeling better in the mornings AND I don't have to lie down with her to get her to sleep, so after reading stories I can do other things.

More big news: The Moroccan told me that if I'm going to go work out, he will make sure she gets to bed at a reasonable hour. I can't even say how much this means to me as having that shift to a more shared responsibility takes such a weight of concern off of my shoulders.

So a couple of days ago, we managed to set up an informal schedule for me to work out (around the evenings when he plays soccer). And the first task he gave me is to work on the stair climber. A lot.

Allrighty then.

I first tried this a couple of days ago. I knew that it would probably kill me be good for me to start in small increments.

Like five minutes at a time.

You know those little categories they have for heart rate that you can calculate? Resting, Fat Burning, Cardio training, Maximum? And how you should work at a set "target" based on your age and your goals?

After about two minutes on the stair climber, I had my heart rate up to "You Should Be Dead Already." I gave it three more minutes and then I quit and went back to the treadmill.

But I said I was going to be positive in this post.

On the way home, I started thinking about where I was in May 2010. I couldn't walk to the end of the block and back without having to lie down on the couch for the rest of the day due to pain. I always had pain unless I had painkillers. I couldn't do *any* form of workout without pain, including walking at two miles per hour on the treadmill while on painkillers AND because of those extreme limitations couldn't even get my heart rate into the triple digits--in other words, while working out to my maximum physical capability, I was still in the "Resting" heart rate zone.

Okay, so running my heart rate up to You Should Be Dead Already might not be genius, but I did it, and I did it without pain. Well, without back pain. I did feel some muscles on the right side getting a bit cranky, but it wasn't my back preventing me from doing more. For me, this is a hugely positive change from where I was. Not to mention that the treadmill--which I then ran on--felt easy and it used to be my nemesis.

Fine, Fine. I'll Explain.

This story actually goes back quite a ways. But this is me and I can't tell a short story and it's my explanation, so here goes.

1997 (I told you this goes back quite a ways.)
I was living in Japan, teaching English. I was alternatingly thrilled to be living this "exotic" life overseas that I'd dreamed of nearly my whole life vs. completely astounded at how mundane and annoying some of my not-so-exotic life was. I learned a lot, was exposed to so many things I never would have seen or learned in the US, and at the same time, was really annoyed and frustrated with some of the day-to-day things I had to put up with. At times, I felt extremely isolated as I had gone there alone and knew no one there. I developed some friendships with a few other foreigners which at times was great and at other times was a challenge. As an avid reader, I craved anything I could get my hands on that I could read, because my Japanese...well, didn't exist.

I don't remember where I found it, but I ended up with a magazine that had an article in it about a climb up Kilamanjaro. For those of you unfamiliar, this is the highest peak in all of Africa. Now, when I say "climb," I use the term because nobody says "I walked up an 18,000 foot mountain." Because 18,000 feel of elevation is hard and saying you "walked" it is like saying someone who swam the English Channel "floated" across. It is (I have read) the highest "walkable" summit in the world--but even the article I read talked about how some of that walk was like steep sand dunes that you scramble on all fours and for every three feet you climb, you slide back two.

Despite my (sometimes) disillusionment with how "romantic" and "adventurous" living overseas was, climbing Kilamanjaro suddenly sounded very exciting to me--that same sense of romantic adventure (and I don't mean "love" romantic, but "wonderful" romantic). So I put it on a "to-do" list. Now the popular term is "bucket list," but I hadn't heard that back then.

Last week
We were having dinner with friends. The Moroccan casually mentions that he and some friends of his are planning to climb Kilamanjaro.

I about fell out of my chair. Not because I was excited about this. But because it was the first I'd heard about it.

"Are you serious?!" I asked.

I must have sounded totally incredulous because he looked at me with concern (it may have been "please-don't-tell-me-you're-going-to-object-to-this-concern") and said, very cautiously, "Uh, yes. But we haven't quite worked out the details and stuff."

Tangent: I'm so used to "not having the details worked out and stuff" that truly, this would not alleviate concerns I might have had. End tangent.

"I want to go. I really want to go. Will you train me to go?"

I think this was the point where he about fell out of his chair.

And with every right, because 1) I'm not in shape, 2) My exercise schedule has been pathetic (more on this later), 3) I have never, ever expressed any interest in mountain climbing before, and 4) I had just asked him for help.

It was then his turn to ask if I was serious.

The rest of the conversation was not all that interesting as we established that yes, I was serious, and yes, I had a lot of work ahead of me and then we got on to other topics.

A few nights ago, he asked me again if I was serious. He started laying out some things we'd have to do and some other (more local) mountains I would have to climb in preparation to see if it is something I could do at all.

Since we're now talking about it seriously, I have to take serious steps to get ready. I have been having problems scheduling triathlons due to my judging schedule and not knowing when we're going to visit the relatives this summer and it has become very clear to me that if I don't have a very specific training focus...I don't have anything to work towards and have problems doing it.

Also, this is no "little" goal. Sometimes I am a total minimalist with things--my first triathlon did get me moving again, which was huge. I toyed with the idea of building up to larger distances than sprint, but I hate running so completely much that I didn't want to do much more than a sprint triathlon. My attitude towards triathlons also was not to be competitive (that would be delusional), but to do them. And I've done that.

Don't get me wrong. I still want to do more and as soon as we figure out our schedules, I'll be trying to see which one(s) I can do/afford, and I will be there, because the specific focus will still help me. Plus I'd like to get over whatever my issue is with swimming in open water.

But I need a bigger motivator to move me forward. Something that I want to do, that has meaning for me, and is achievable. (So, for example, Mt. Everest is a non-goal, probably ever. That level of danger has no appeal to me.)

My big concern with Kilamanjaro (aside the whole fitness level bit) is altitude. I've had altitude sickness before. It was minor, but it still kicked my butt. And I wasn't all that high up. I know you can acclimate (which I didn't do before), so I'm hoping we'll have a chance to do that.

When got altitude sickness before, I was going up Toubkal with The Moroccan. We'd gone from sea level to 1500 feet one day, then from 1500 feet to 7700 feet in 7 hours. This was when I started showing symptoms. Minor, like shortness of breath, which was holding us up from getting to the refuge. So they threw me on a mule and we kept going. You know, because the best thing to do for someone exhibiting signs of altitude sickness is to take them higher. By time we stopped at 10,500 feet, I was nauseated and not thinking clearly. One example? When I was on the mule, I had to make clicking noises out the side of my mouth to keep the stubborn animal moving. When I got off the mule, I walked around for about five minutes, continuing to make the clicking noises until I realized I didn't need to any more.

The Moroccan only noticed just how ill I was when I refused to eat dinner. I didn't think I could hold anything down, and even if I could, I wasn't sure I could make it up or down the stairs in the refuge again because I felt so wobbly.

I felt much better in the morning, but again, this was only 10,500 feet.

Kilamanjaro is over 18,000 feet.

So 1) I have to get into shape. And 2) I guess I'm going to have to deal with the altitude when we get there.

One Word.

Kilamanjaro.

Don't Get Too Excited...

...because this isn't a "real" post yet. Give me about another week and things should quiet down enough that I can get back to work.

However, in the meanwhile, I'm going to share some personal history that is evidence I need someone to cook for me.

Not because I'm lazy (that's beside the point) or because I don't enjoy it (also beside the point).

Because I am lucky that so far, I have not (entirely) burned down a house due to one of my cooking disasters.

Stuff burning in our kitchen is probably a weekly occurrence. I have no patience to stay in (or even near) the kitchen while waiting for something mundane to happen, like bringing the frozen pizza to an edible temperature. Plus, I figure if I can set a timer, the four-year-old can come let me know when it beeps (she's actually better about this than the Moroccan), and I can come fetch whatever it was from the oven. I am the Queen of Multitasking. (Note: I specifically did not say I was the Queen of Successful Multitasking.) So I will deposit something in the oven or on the stove, leave to use the restroom, walk by the computer on the way back and end up reading Facebook posts until the smoke detector goes off.

My mother really did try to teach me to cook, and when I have the time and patience (which is rare enough that it's safest to say "never"), I can follow basic recipes. I make fantastic French Toast and excellent grilled cheese (which is almost exclusively what I lived on while in Japan). However, I don't eat much of those any more, which means I'm either eating something raw (green peppers are a favorite), packaged (yay for string cheese), or I'm picking out the least burnt parts of whatever I tried to cook. If I'm really lucky*, the Moroccan cooks dinner early enough for me to eat AND prepares enough for me. This is rare though as he likes to eat at 9 or 10 pm at earliest--if I eat that late and close to when I go to bed, I don't feel well in the morning. Plus if I want to go work out, I have to eat a couple hours before then because running is hard enough without trying to simultaneously digest. In any case, my cooking is atrocious. I probably shouldn't even call it cooking because cavepeople had to have had more culinary skills than me or they would have starved to death since they couldn't, you know, open a new can of food when the first one ends up charcoal.

*The Moroccan has a different definition of "lucky" than I do.

The first signs that I had issues (that I remember) were in high school. I was making baked potatoes and decided to brush premelted butter on them. Unfortunately, since it was already melted, it dripped to the bottom of the oven. I was in the kitchen when I heard KKSSSHHHH.......pwooof! KKSSSHHHHH.....pwoof! When I turned around, I saw something that can only be truly described as a direct copy of the flame spurts in the fire swamp from The Princess Bride.

Yeah, Mom wasn't too happy about that one. However, since the butter that dripped onto the bottom of the oven would sizzle, then burst into flame, we kind of felt like it might not be wise to open the oven door, so we had to just wait until the potatoes were done. Except for a very few scorch marks, amazingly they turned out okay.

During the same period of my life I set the toaster on fire. In my defense, I would like to explain that all I did was put in two slices of bread and push the button. However, since I already had the fire swamp episode behind me, when the toaster burst into flames and set the cupboard above it on fire, somehow my family decided that it was my fault that this had occurred. It didn't help that I had walked out of the kitchen while the toaster was on and someone else had to deal with the problem.

Jump ahead to after college (I lived in the dorms all through college and although I complained regularly about the food, clearly I'd never had to live off of my own cooking for that long a period of time or I would have kept the whining to myself) and I moved to Japan--but I already told you about how I lived on French Toast and grilled cheese there. My problems with cooking in Japan were not so much things being burnt. I had a shoebox apartment, with a one-burner stove that was right next to my miniature sink. For reference, both the burner and the sink fit into a surface area the size of a regular cookie sheet, if that. The problem was that if so much as a drop of water got into the element of the burner, it shorted it out for several days, meaning I couldn't cook (or burn) anything, so I had a lot of convenience store food since I couldn't afford restaurants.

Come home from Japan and one of my few cooking achievements was a lasagna dish I made one night for my roommate. It was fantastic. It took me two days of planning, a week's worth of grocery money for the specialty ingredients, an hour of prep the night before, and four hours that night.

Seriously? I don't have that kind of time to cook. It's actually cheaper and faster to burn something, toss it, and go out to eat. I've never put forth that much effort on a single dish since.

Okay, yes, there are simpler recipes and cheaper ingredients. Not the point here.

I. Don't. Enjoy. Cooking.

And not enjoying it does not motivate me to learn to be better so I don't suck at it quite so much.

Instead, I am a culinary fire hazard.

My biggest catastrophe in my current home was the actually very serious grease fire that I (accidentally) set last year, resulting in a damaged (but still functional) microwave, scorch marks that go up the cupboards and onto the ceiling, third degree burns on The Moroccan's hand, and burns on the dog (we literally had to go to the doggie ER to get her treated). I escaped unscathed (physically), because I was so useless running around screaming ohmigod! whatdowedo? whatdowedo? that The Moroccan told me to just get out of the way.

Since then, the number of burned meals has not really changed, nor has my attention span or apparent ability to care enough to do something about it.

Tonight though, was probably one of my lowest moments.

I decided to make a special treat using Halloween candy: S'mores.

It turns out that you can, in fact, burn graham crackers in the microwave. And when they are burned especially badly, they get stuck to the plate (Note to self: burnt graham crackers could replace super glue, must see if we can get a patent on this).

I did manage to successfully create some unburnt S'mores afterwards, but since the kitchen and family room smelled like smoke, it was a bit hard to tell. Also I belatedly remembered that I've never really enjoyed S'mores because I don't really like marshmallows, and my daughter and husband don't really like chocolate, so the whole thing was really an exercise in futility.

Except, of course, to remind me that I need someone else to cook for me.

In Transition

Since a few of my readers have asked...here's the status.

I'm in transition. Kinda like between events at a triathlon, except I seem to be moving much more slowly.

As to my current lack of goals/direction, I was awaiting a judging schedule before thinking about competition dates and what goals to set around those unset events. I'm sad not to be doing Catalina, but couldn't justify the costs. Maybe another year, when I can justify the costs.

As for posting, I have had some good things happen, I've had some "issues" (as one friend put it, she has so many "issues" that she has "subscriptions"...sadly, I totally understand and identify), and I've had some challenges.

In the interests of not sharing things that are not other people's business (I tend to share more than I should as it is), one of my ways of dealing with personal stress and stressful situations is to turn someone inward. Also, I know if I posted details about some of them, it would get back to those people, either directly as they read this, or indirectly, and the fallout from that would create more stress and more problems.

The way I deal with stress? Not healthy. I eat. Or I spend money. Or both. Sometimes I spend money at a restaurant. You know, kill two birds with one stone and all that. And if I'm really stressed, then I go shopping after I eat at the restaurant. Then I come home and try to escape into a book.

That is not to say that whenever I don't post, I'm having a face-stuffing fest. I also don't post when I'm on vacation or I'm just plain busy.

In the last three weeks, I've had all of the above. I put together a massage continuing education conference and was getting ready for it. Then I was gone for three days at the conference, out of even cell phone range. I got back and had several meetings during the week and then judged both days on the weekend. Then I had more meetings and another business trip where I actually had to fly out of state. Then we had busy events that meant that I didn't have time to even sleep properly all weekend. Now I'm having to deal with the details of moving my practice in 12 days. And in the middle of that, personal stress.

And we've already covered how I deal with stress. Negatively. I tend to do the opposite of what would be good for me, which I know is silly, but it's what happens. And when I get upset, same thing. And some of the stress was caused by things that upset me. And now I'm starting too many sentences with the word and.

So I'm in transition. Trying to move my brain to de-stress mode so I can stop my backwards unhelpful behavior, get everything done, and in the meanwhile life goes on.

I will post more when I'm a little less scattered and (hopefully) have figured out what I'm transitioning to.

Back on the Judging Circuit

I got my judging assignments back in August, as I might have mentioned sometime back then but since I'm too lazy to check and can't remember so few people read this anyway, I'm reiterating it. (Sorry. Thank you for reading, really!)

Combined with family events, holidays, massage events, adding judging to my weekends means that I don't have a free weekend between Labor Day until the first weekend after Thanksgiving.

Actually, this is a good thing, because it means there will be (slightly) more cash flow in the budget. Maybe even enough for a new bed frame.

So today was my first (paid) day judging. I judged last weekend, but it was a volunteer event that earns me the cost of my judging membership dues, so while I benefit, it's not really money I can spend.

I'm going to be repetitive for a moment. This is the start of the judging season. Which should logically follow that it's the start of the competitive season. Meaning some athletes (those who competed last year or who have exceptional talent) are, um, "more prepared" than others.

Yes, coaching comes into play for this, but as a former coach, I'm not going to slam coaches who have lousy teams, nor am I going to put on a pedestal coaches with exceptional teams. In my 18 years of coaching experience, I've seen athletes who excel under (in my opinion) lousy coaches, and likewise, phenomenal coaches who have athletes who are never going to be on the awards stand. Some of it is gym policy, some of it is the program (or lack thereof) that is built around those coaches (for example, the strength/weakness of the recreational and developmental coaches who feed athletes into the competitive program), some of it is luck, some of it is gym reputation, and yes, the good majority is what a coach can do with the kids they get. I've seen any number of these combinations. Today was no exception.

There were kids--and this is compulsories (quick review: everyone does the same routine and it means hearing the floor music 60some times over a period of about three hours), which is the beginning levels of competition--who were nearly flawless. I think we handed out a couple of 9.775s. Yay, girls!

I also had to give out the lowest score I've ever given. Which actually made me really sad. I wanted to go offer her and her coach advice, but that's one of the things we really aren't supposed to do as judges. If a coach comes up and asks the right question in the right context and you're in a state (I am) where the coach/judge relationship is pretty good and you're not at any kind of a championship meet (we weren't), then factual information can be given.

For example, "if she hadn't left out that one skill, it would add up to 1.6 to her score."

And then, although still the lowest score we handed out yesterday, it wouldn't have been the lowest score I ever gave.

I'd still feel badly for her, though.

Perhaps because I have delusions of grandeur I had some levels of success of a coach, it's times like these that I think, Gosh, I wish I could go to that gym and coach for them and help those poor girls.

But I'm done coaching. And, like I said before, I can't see what goes on in that gym or judge the coach (at least, not entirely) by his athletes, and I could end up just as trapped by circumstance anyway.

We saw a few other routines that were in the low zone. Usually odd mishaps that the penalties happen to be severe for (and it was the beginning of the season--live and learn), but just none that were so low. What's worse is that when I reviewed my calculations for that score--I missed a couple of things and it should have been even lower.

And because it was one of the last routines of the day, it stuck with me. I hope that kid doesn't quit. I hope that she has a good support system around her. I hope that she stays active.

In the meanwhile, and hoping the rest of the season will not have a repeat of such an event, I'm looking forward to it. Because today's paycheck was about half of the bed frame I want.

I Forgot My Own Lesson

A few years after we were married, I accidentally learned a lesson about getting things that I want. If there's something that's a semi-large to large expense, but that we can finance reasonably, need severely, or even just really really want, but I'm the one that wants/needs it and my husband doesn't see the value, we don't get it.

To be clear: I am NOT slamming my husband here. He manages our budget and despite two layoffs (equalling 9 months of no income), we haven't lost a house or a car or (for the most part) our standard of living. So bravo to him (truly).

Here's the thing: there have been several instances where there has been something that I wanted/needed that were rather large purchases. Things that would truly take planning, make a dent in the budget so that we'd have to compensate somewhere else, and--here's the key--he wasn't convinced that we needed.

Let's look at a little case history.

Way back in 2004, I took a few sewing classes. There was this super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine that I saw and wanted. It was also super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow expensive. When I mentioned it could be my birthday present, I believe there was mumbling in Arabic that I presume translated to something along the lines of, "Right, and then we'll move into a mansion."

Jump ahead to early 2006. I'm pregnant and my car had died. I was bicycling/using public transportation for three-plus hours a day to get to and from work. (My husband, who was a 15-minute bike ride from work was driving his functional car.) I ended up miscarrying (not related to the bicycle riding), but still had no transportation that did not involve self-propellment and/or digging change out of my husband's wallet.

I'd helpfully emailed him a list of items for a new car. It looked something like this:

Must-haves
decent gas mileage
front wheel drive or 4-wheel drive to be functional in snow
good/low maintenance
4-door model so I won't break my back bending a seat forward to put in a car seat if we ever have a kid
room for my massage table in it

It-would-be-nice-ifs
functional stereo
air-conditioning
sideview mirrors on both sides
automatic locks so I could lock all the doors at once
trip meter

As-long-as-I'm-dreaming
one of those fancy button keys that unlocks the car
a sunroof
bunwarmers (you know, the seats with heat in them)
a CD changer in the stereo
rear wiper
something not ugly

Note: my old Subaru Justy that I drove after college for about 5 years was only $1500 back then. If you could find one with four doors, that would be fine with me.

Apparently even my "must-haves" list was too demanding because I never even got a response to my new car features list.

A few weeks after the miscarriage, I had to borrow his car because I had several doctor's appointments that I couldn't get to in time with my bike and public transit and still get to work. The next day, I (accidentally, I swear) forgot to return his car key and when I took off on my merry way on my bicycle, I didn't think anything of it.

Until a mile from home, riding in the bike lane on a fairly busy street, I hear my name shouted right behind my left ear. I nearly wet my pants fell off the bike I was so startled. Turns out it was my husband, who'd gone to leave for work, couldn't find his car keys, realized I still had them, ran out, got on his bike, and chased me down. This was when I discovered that I still had his car keys. Coincidentally, it was when he decided that he needed for me to have my own car again.

That night he had a list of car options for me. We picked up the new car one month to the day after my miscarriage (and it had everything except bun warmers and four-wheel drive).

Several months ahead, in late 2006. Bob had destroyed beyond cleaning several spots on the carpet, we'd bought and housebroken a Golden Retriever, which had also destroyed beyond cleaning several spots on the carpet, and we'd got suckered into volunteered to dogsit my sister's bulemic dog (fine, it's not bulemic, it has a birth defect, but the end result is total involuntary binge-and-purge behavior), which added to the destroyed beyond cleaning spots on the carpet. Which meant we could no longer strategically place rugs/furniture on the floor to cover things up. I was stating, repeatedly, that we needed to get new floor. My husband, who I'm now going to just refer to as "The Moroccan" did his consumer reports research, shopped around for the decided-upon laminate flooring, and determined that we couldn't afford it.

Since I was pregnant, I was reiterating the need for the floor because there was no way I was going to let "Wiggly" (as we called our daughter before she was born, rather than referring to "the baby" or "it") crawl around on that carpet. Again I was reminded that it was not in the budget.

However, The Moroccan had also started sewing. In fact, he was sewing more complicated things than I have ever sewn. And better than me. Honestly, I was totally jealous proud of him. He was talking about selling his creations and he was getting frustrated with the limitations of our sewing machine.

I took him to the store with the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine and had them demo some different machines--since honestly, some of what he was doing was beyond my skill level, I figured it would be better if they explained it to him. You know, since I would try to influence his decision couldn't.

About 45 minutes of demonstration later, after a demo on the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine, he turns to me and asks, "Do you want it?"

I was stunned. For a whole lot of reasons, including that the sewing machine asking price was 3-4 times what we'd estimated that the flooring (which we couldn't afford) would cost.

I carefully responded, "Yes and no....Yes, I want it, but no because we don't need it and we need new floors FIRST. Which we can't afford, so no, I don't want this machine. I need new floors."

I swear to goodness that if looks could kill, the saleslady (who I am friends with), would have decapitated me with laser vision at that moment.

My husband sat there, trying to process what I'd just told him. "But I thought you really really wanted this super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine."

I repeated. "Yes, I want it. I don't need it. I need new floors. And no way am I letting you buy this sewing machine if we can't get new floors."

Again with the saleslady death look.

Now, in case you haven't already caught it (I hadn't at this point), something MAJOR had just happened. The super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine had changed from something I wanted to something The Moroccan wanted. I didn't realize this until several months later when I was retelling the story to a friend and it was pointed out to me. Which is why I'm pointing it out now.

The Moroccan says, "What if we could get the floors and the sewing machine?"

I believe at this point I actually snorted. Which is when the saleslady stepped in and sweetened the deal with same-as-cash financing, reminding us of a rebate, and throwing in a couple of discounts and freebies.

I shrugged. "If our budget went from we can't afford new floors that we need to we can afford the floors AND the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine in a matter of 45 minutes, I'm not going to argue. I don't understand it, but I'm not going to argue."

He asked for a calculator, paper, and pen, and then spent about 20 minutes (after the store was supposed to close) mumbling and scribbling.

We drove away with the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine in the back of my car and the promise of new floors before Wiggly would be born.

Are you seeing the pattern yet? If it's me that wants the big purchase, it doesn't really happen. Once he decides that we want/need the purchase, it happens. (I would like to note that both the car, sewing machine, and flooring purchases were all made before his first layoff--at his job where the income and benefits were significantly greater than they are now.)

In other words, if I could use this technique sparingly (because there is a point where the budget won't bend, no matter what) and strategically, I might have a little less frustration waiting time before we get things.

Except the problem is, I can't seem to remember to use it.

Until today, when I realized, that accidentally (again), I had.

Our waterbed, which I loved for years and honestly, still really do like, hurts my back too much to sleep on it any more. And by "too much" I mean "so much that I haven't slept on it pretty much for the past two years." I've been hinting that if we got a good mattress, we wouldn't have to get a boxspring and we could use the waterbed frame and I wouldn't have to camp out on the futon/massage table/our daughter's bed any more.

But good mattresses are expensive, and--you guessed it--not in the budget.

When we got back from visiting my sister this summer, we discovered that our cat had been locked in the bedroom all 11 days that we were gone--without food or a litterbox. Yes, she survived (by drinking toilet water), and no, we're really not sure how it happened, and no, the housesitter didn't notice because that cat hides under the furniture if a strong breeze blows three counties away.

The cat survived. The carpet and some of our possessions did not.

The master bedroom was one of a few remaining areas in our house that we have not refloored since we moved in (along with the kitchen, my bathroom, and the front entryway). Mostly because we didn't want to disassemble the king size waterbed with 12 storage drawers and a cupboard underneath and a monster headboard with shelves. Now it was unavoidable.

The room was so horrendous smelling that even with fans blowing out the window 24/7, it was stinking up the rest of the house. Even The Moroccan, who can't normally smell very well (long story involving broken nose and reconstruction), couldn't deal with it and started camping out in the living room.

Know what? I've been asking for a new bed (or at least mattress) for two years. It only took two months of him sleeping on the futon to announce, "I've had enough. We've got to get a new bed."

My point? Once again, it was something that he thought we needed. And not being (totally) stupid* I seized the moment and took us mattress shopping today.

*If I was smart at all, I would have failed to replace the waterbed heater a couple of years ago when it broke because he had to sleep on the futon then too.

I happen to have relatives in the mattress manufacturing industry and had actually done some shopping around. Not that I didn't trust them when I was told that they offer great mattresses at reasonable prices. No, it was because The Moroccan won't buy anything without cross-comparison shopping done first.

I discovered that my relatives do, in fact, have the most reasonable rates on comparable mattresses, so I hauled The crutches-using Moroccan down to the showroom. (Another "get stuff" tactic I might want to keep in mind--take him shopping when he is somehow disabled because he'll just want to be done with the process. Not sure if it will work yet though.)

We found a couple that we really liked but were a little undecided. We had chosen the one we liked the best, but my relative wouldn't let us buy it--she said it was important to wait and then come back. However, I was wanting to get this done NOW (not because I was afraid my husband would change his mind, but because I am So. Tired. Of. Sleeping. With. A. Four-year-old. So she sent us over to the next closest showroom (about 10 minutes away), because they had one more model there we hadn't tried and it would give us some time to "step away" from the one we'd liked and see if we liked it as much when we tried it again.

We ended up buying the other model. We didn't get the "foundation" for it because we haven't chosen a bed frame. I had actually looked at IKEA yesterday to see if they had anything I liked and see what the price ranges were. I don't know what we'll do on that yet, but apparently it's "not in the budget."

For now, I've totally burned out the "he needs it so we'll get it" method and I'm not testing the "taking you shopping on crutches" again right away, so I think I'm going to have to hope I make enough money judging that I can make the big purchase.

More News From the Stupid Zone

Yesterday I was feeling pretty miserable--runny nose, total sinus headcold thing going on--and it had been building for a few days. But I don't really have time to be sick, so I basically ignored it and kept going. Perhaps this is how I run myself into the ground at times. Anyway, I was not at 100%.

Today my husband was having orthoscopic knee surgery and while I was at the hospital, I had a total sneeze attack and my eyes felt like they had sand underneath my eyelids and I wanted to scratch. them. out.

I was thinking to myself, Wow, I feel really sorry for people with allergies. They deal with this all the time.

Then I went, Wait. I have allergies. Maybe this isn't a cold.

I took some Benadryl and now I'm feeling much better.

In defense of my cluelessness reasoning, I have not had reactions from my environmental allergies since 1999, unless I count the allergy test done in 2003. So it wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

Now I'm wondering if that "cold" I had all winter and spring earlier this year?...might have been allergies.

Just a Few of My Problems

1) Ketchup addiction.

2) An inability to keep ketchup on my food while transferring said food to my mouth.

3) Directly related, shirts without ketchup stains.

4) Finding I have spilled ketchup on myself somewhere other than a shirt (in this instance, the side of my knee--and how did it get there?) is where this really gets worse.

5) (And most disturbing) My first and implemented idea for cleaning this up was to have the dog come lick it off.

Apparently We Weren't Done with the Sick

I had one of my insomniac nights last night where I just couldn't get to sleep. I think I drifted off around 4:00 am.

My husband woke me at 6:30 to ask questions about my daughter's plan for the day. Then she woke up and came in and wanted to talk with me for an hour as my husband was getting ready.

I know, I know, someday I will look back on this and wish my daughter still wanted to talk to her mommy for an hour, but all I could think right then was that I just wanted to sleep.

Finally, they left the house.

What felt like two seconds later, my phone rang. It was actually just after 9:00, but it was my daughter's French preschool, informing me that she had diarrhea and needed to be picked up immediately.

Yay.

I got up, showered, let the dog out, and took off to her school. The teacher didn't seem terribly pleased (not that I blame her; their policy on that is pretty clear). My daughter wasn't too upset; she wanted to know where we were going to go instead. I went grocery shopping and then she was begging for sushi. Having a bit of a craving myself, I went ahead and took her to my favorite local place.

She'd just barely eaten the tops off of her crab salad when she informed me she needed to go potty. Since we've been dealing with accidents, I tried not to show my annoyance, but I was kinda frustrated that once again, she waited until we'd started a meal to go take care of business.

In the restroom, she had another bout of what got her sent home from French school. Then she threw up. Luckily, she didn't get any on either of us and some of it even made it into the toilet. I cleaned up the bathroom as best I could with paper towels, informed the wait staff that someone might want to go in and sanitize the place, paid for our meal, and left.

Apparently a good thing she came home from the preschool.

I called her pediatrician, who told me we'd done all the right things so far in regulating what she was eating and doing, and that this was probably just an "aftershock" so I didn't need to worry and to put her on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast).

My daughter thought today was GREAT because I sat her on the couch, turned on whatever movies she asked for, and took her liquids or nibbles of food every 10 minutes.

Of course, the poor little thing is now exhausted and took a 4-hour nap.

Now if we can just get her insides back to normal.

Labor Day Weekend Getaway: Day 4

I woke up at 7:40 this morning and panicked. I was sleeping on the massage table because I still wasn't able to get through all the vomit laundry enough to remake the bed and the futon--which just enough laundry was done to make it--was taken over by my husband and daughter.

The reason for the panic was that my husband was supposed to leave the house at 4:30 in the morning and I hadn't heard him get up.

Apparently I was SO tired that I slept through him getting up, getting ready, and leaving.

However, I was still a bit panicky because I'd bribed the neighbor girl to come help me with some chores today so that I could surprise my husband when he came home from his fishing/surfing trip and they (her mom offered to come help too) were supposed to be here at 8:00. I'm totally not one of those people that would clean before the cleaning people came (if I could ever afford cleaning people), but in this case, I at least needed a path and sort of workspaces.

I also was utterly ashamed at the kitchen. Again, not along the lines of cleaning before the cleaning people come, but needing a path and truly needing a non-offensive environment to work in.

Amazingly, by 10:00 am, with the neighbors helping, my daughter's room had been cleaned, including going through her clothes for fit. The vomit laundry had all been washed, and the rest of Mt. Laundry folded, and the kitchen had been cleaned.

I'd honestly expected an all-day project and so I was a little confused as to what to do with the rest of my day.

I did manage to haul the water mattress out to finish draining it (the siphon out the window didn't get the last of it), piled up my recycling cans and bottles in the car, and then got some other tasks done for the preschool.

My husband actually caught three salmon! The fishing license was only good for two, so he gave one to my cousin, and all three guys on the boat maxed out their tags.

He was really happy when he came home--so much so that he thanked me for arranging the day and told me he really appreciated it.

Oh, and he's going back next weekend to go fishing again.

Labor Day Weekend Getaway: Day 3

The plan: hubby takes Friday off work, we go camping, spending 3 nights at a campground, days spent visiting with my relatives and hubby surfing when he can, come back Monday.

The reality: oh so very different.

At 1:20 this morning, in our brand-new tent, I was woken by my daughter puking on me. As I was trying to disentangle myself from the now-messy sleeping bags so that I could get shoes on and get us out of the tent and showered, we had continuing reverse digestion performances.

I finally got us both out of the tent and into the showers. When we were done, I left the dirty clothes in the shower room and went back later with the garbage bags I'd thankfully thrown in to the car at the last minute when I'd packed on Friday. When I arrived back at the tent, we found that my husband had pulled the messy items out and stashed them under the car, then rearranged the clean stuff left into a sleeping area again and he'd already fallen back asleep.

He was less than pleased when I informed him that we were going home, now. Yes, at 2:00 in the morning, and I would drive if he was too tired. No, I wouldn't be going back to the relatives house to pick up the cooler--I would do that later, and yes, I was going to make a separate trip. So I drove.

We got home about 4:00 am, left most of the stuff in the car (I did pull out some of the worst items and started a load of vomit laundry) and promptly went to bed. At 6:30 I was woken by another round of reverse digestion. This made me extremely grateful that I'd insisted on leaving the campground as I was going to start another load of vomit laundry but discovered the first load really wasn't clean enough for the dryer, so ran it again and left a pile in the hallway.

I set up the massage table for my daughter to sleep on as it was the only place that was now covered with vinyl that could be easily cleaned and went and slept on one of the futons myself.

If I haven't complained about it lately, let me remind you that our master bedroom is completely out of commission due to the cat being locked in there for 11 days when we went to visit my sister earlier this summer. Before leaving, we'd completely emptied the room, including disassembling the waterbed, so we were really limited on where we could sleep at this point.

At 10:00, I dragged myself up out of bed and headed for the coast to pick up the cooler. When I got there, my relatives house was near deserted--apparently I'd just missed everyone and they'd gone their own ways for the afternoon, but were expected back in about an hour.

I ended up setting up a fishing trip for my husband with some of the guys, buying a one-day fishing license for him, and playing games with some of the aunts.

I got home around 8:00. Our daughter was fine all day, except that her backside outputs were still demonstrating signs that things were not quite all right internally. Her energy levels, however, far exceeded mine as I was exhausted when I finally went to bed.

Labor Day Weekend Getaway: Day 2

I sorta forgot to mention to my husband that often the dory fishermen will stay at the campground and they start up their boats at about 4:30 in the morning. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be woken. Oops.

We did actually get up around 7:00 as our daughter wasn't going to sleep any more and kept informing us, "It's in the MORNING. Let's get up! It's in the MORNING."

I actually pulled out my laptop and my phone, connected to the internet on wifi, and got a small project done while sitting at our picnic table in my pajamas. I was just finishing up when I noticed my husband was dressing our daughter and I got annoyed.

As background, let me explain.

When I talked about camping at a campground, I said I wanted to do this specifically because I wasn't sure we'd be able to use the showers at my relatives house (too many people, too crazy), so I wanted to go to a campground where we could shower. He agreed. I made reservations at, and informed him of such, at a campground with showers.

He was part of the conversation last night when I told my relatives where we were staying and that I was glad they had showers there.

When we pulled into the campground, I pointed them out and said, "Look! There's the showers--and not too far from our campsite!"

I informed him last night, as we were going to bed, that I wasn't going to bathe our daughter prior to sleeping as we'd go take a shower in the morning.

As we got up, I informed him I wanted to get our showers before we got going.

As we had breakfast, I said, "When she's done with breakfast, I want to go take a shower."

I got distracted with my project and as I finished (as I already stated), he was dressing her, and I got annoyed. "I wish you hadn't done that," I told him. "I was just going to take her to get a shower."

His response? "Why didn't you tell me?"

I grabbed the things we'd need for the shower, and walked off. Got to the showers and--turns out you have to pay for the shower (which explained the change machine I'd noticed last night and wondered what people would need change for). Went back to the car, grabbed $4.00, hoping it would be enough, and went and got change. In the shower, put a quarter in the machine and . . . nothing. Another quarter and PRESTO! Hot water.

We showered, got dressed, and headed back to our campsite. Hubby packed for surfing and off we went to the beach.

He changed into his gear and we left his bag on the sand. I drove off with my daughter and we got breakfast at a little local cafe and then headed back to pick up my husband, who came shivering out of the water a little bit later. Apparently it was really cold--much more so than the normal "really cold" we get there. After defrosting his feet, we headed up to my relatives place, where we were fed fresh crab, fresh grilled salmon, and oysters. Plus we got to sit around and talk to my relatives--I very much enjoyed hearing the stories from years past.

We kept catching my daughter with platefuls of blackberries and finally cut her off. Unfortunately, even after cutting her off, it seemed that every time we turned around, she had more berries in front of her. I started packing her full of cheese as I was afraid of what the outputs would become tomorrow.

My aunt and uncle have a bunch of plastic tables and chairs--the kind that stack neatly, but aren't for heavy-duty use. With the uneven surface of the driveway and people shifting around on tables as we tried to escape the sun in favor of shade, there were a few casualties. Having had an "experience" with one of those chairs before (I fell over backwards into bushes and had a heck of a time getting back up as no one would help me because they were too busy laughing too hard), I was very careful when I placed and then sat down in my chair.

Apparently I wasn't careful enough.

As I went to stretch at one point, the chair went over backwards. Luckily (?) I crashed into a stump and rolled over sideways. It really tweaked my back though and I ended up going inside to lie down on the floor and stretch. I got stuck. Fully humiliated, I managed to v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y get into a crawling positing and worm my way onto the couch. I laid there for a bit trying to just breathe to get comfortable and get my back out of spasm.

After a couple of hours, I was able to straighten and walk again, but really just wanted to go back to the campground and go to bed. My husband decided to take off and go surfing again, so my daughter and I stayed with the relatives some more and she snuck still more blackberries. Finally we headed back to the campground and settled down for the night.

Or so we thought, but technically that will happen on tomorrow's entry.

Labor Day Weekend Getaway: Day 1

My husband took work off today so that we could get an early start on a planned camping trip/family reunion at the beach. My family has been doing some kind of a gathering at the beach for over 60 years. My mom used to tell me stories about when she went as a kid and I remember going myself 30 years ago. So now that I have my own family, of course, I continue the tradition of heading over for the weekend.

Of course, the event has changed over the years. It had already changed when I was a kid and I remember all the "grownups" talking about how it used to be and "remember whens." I can't speak to that time, but the memories I have are of camping at my great-uncle's place on the huge field by his house, along with 4 or 5 other families, some of whom would get to chatting after arriving and forget to set up their tents until after dark, when everyone would be stumbling around with flashlights and "shushing" the kids while they half-shouted curse words at the stubborn tents.

In the morning, we'd get up and pile into various cars and drive down to the put-in on the river. We'd load up 2-3 dories while my uncle joked around with the coast guard, ASSURING them that we were 1) not over the boat's capacity and 2) had lifejackets for everyone on board. This conversation usually occurred while my siblings, cousins, and I crouched in the storage hold in the bow of the boat to hide.

We'd finally set off down the river, with my mom bugging my uncle about putting out his cigarette. When I was really little, I remember being bundled up but still freezing, sitting on my mom's lap as the wind bit at me. When I was older, I got to climb up and sit on the bow of the boat as we slowly navigated the narrow and ever-changing channel.

My uncles usually had to make 2-3 trips to get the whole family down to the spot we'd stake out on the beach. Inevitably on one or more of the trips, the boat would ground and several of the adults would have to get out (both to take weight out of the boat and to push). As soon as it was free, he'd jokingly try to take off without them, although I remember him running aground again at least once as he tried to do this.

After everyone was down at the beach, a bonfire would be started--regardless of the temperature. If it was cold, we'd gather around if we could. Some of the adults would play football on the beach while the dories went out crabbing, occasionally taking one of us kids with them and explaining how it worked, and then dumping us off as quickly as they could get away with it.

When all the crab pots were in, the aunts took over and started cooking them right there on the bonfire, washing them out in the river. We'd feast on crab and all kinds of other goodies that had been hauled out in the coolers and tote bags.

Sunscreen would be applied (and grudgingly received), sunburns would still happen, someone would get hurt playing football, and eventually the wind would kick up, the tide would reach its last high point during daylight, and we'd take off. Or we'd camp on the beach, depending on the year.

In the morning there would be a huge breakfast of eggs and sausage. If we weren't already back at my uncle's house, we'd head back afterwards. The nights we were at his house, there were smoky late nights of poker (usually the guys) and cribbage (usually the women). There'd be tales in the morning of someone winning big--and someone losing.

The last year we camped on the beach was (I think) 1996. When I was little, there were often people around, but usually most of them were locals and my uncle knew a great many of them from the dory fishing community. As I got older, it got more and more crowded, which all the adults complained about. It got so crowded that the crabbing wasn't nearly as good, and usually my uncle had to stock up in preceding weeks in order to have enough for our traditional crab fest.

In 1996, it was already getting crowded enough that--although there was still plenty of room on the beach--we were no longer the only group out there, and we'd be a stone's throw from another group. A far cry from when I was a kid and we'd have to roam through the dunes to chance across another group. That particular year, there had been a group of men across the river that had been drinking fairly heavily and had been heckling our crab boats.

It was late enough that we'd gone to bed--although the older of us kids (I was in my early 20s, as were some of my cousins) were still up talking--when we heard some sort of a commotion down near the bonfire, which was still going. My cousin and I went out to see what was going on and my mom met us halfway and told us to stay back and keep an eye out on the younger kids tents. When we asked what was going on, she wouldn't explain.

The next morning, we got the story in bits and pieces from those who were there. Apparently the drunk group from across the river had come across and started yelling up to the bonfire for our group to "send out your women." My uncles--one of whom was an ex-pro football player and the others who were of similar builds--went down to the water to discourage the group from bothering us. A fight broke out. The tale differs here depending on who I heard it from, but most counts were that our side was just trying to get them to leave, but they were looking for a fight and playing dirty. Our side was "winning" but the other guys still hadn't left. Here the story gets pretty consistent: one of the other guys picked up an oar from one of our boats and hit my uncle in the back of the head. He fell into the water with a head injury and had to be dragged out. I'm not sure what happened at that point, but I think one of my other uncles said something about radioing the Coast Guard and the other group took off.

A couple of the relatives took off with my uncle and headed to the closest city with a hospital--about 20 miles away--to get his head stitched up.

The mood as we packed up the next morning was pretty somber as we hadn't heard back yet on how he was doing. And we never camped on the dunes again.

However, we still all gather at my uncles house--he's built a new one on the top of his hill--and some of the group now gets hotel rooms or rents houses for the weekend.

Our family's plan was to go to a campground with showers (which I'd reserved several weeks ago), my husband could go surfing if he felt like it, and I could hang around and listen to the older generation reminisce about how we used to have crab on the beach--how much fun that was then, but it's really nice to eat it now without sand in it.

We didn't end up leaving homeuntil about 4:00 because it took us much longer to get packed than planned--I had to prepare a couple of dishes that would somewhat keep for the various potlucks--and kept having to run errands for forgotten ingredients and ice for the cooler.

We arrived at my uncle's place just after 6:00 p.m. We talked for a bit and as I noticed the sun dipping, suggested we go find our campground and pitch our tent while it was still daylight, then come back if we wanted to, which we did. My daughter was thrilled because, as I'd told her, the campground is overrun by tame bunnies.

We went back, had a great dinner, talked with the relatives, explained the bandages on our dog's paws several times, and then went back to our campground. We managed to settle in fairly quickly and went to sleep.

In some ways, it was still similar to when I was a kid, as 10 feet away in the next campsite, a family who arrived late (with kids) was trying to set up a tent in the dark.

They gave up and slept in their car.

Today's Episode Features...SURPRISE! Poor Planning.

On the agenda for today: daughter's soccer practice and husband's company picnic. Also I was going to bike to the gym for yoga and swimming.

Not on my personal agenda: 95 degree weather. Also not on my personal agenda: intelligence to check the weather report.

I was so tired I slept in past yoga and by time I got myself ready to go, I didn't have time to go swimming, either. I'd skipped out on going to soccer practice since I was going to meet my husband at the picnic by riding my bike there (the plan was to ride there, load the bike into his car and hitch a ride home). I decided to poke around some garage sales.

Stupidity intervention: never go to a garage sale on a bicycle.

The first sale I stopped at I found a $5 wagon--since I've been wanting something like it, but didn't want to spend a lot of money, I was thrilled--although had to ask if she could hold it until I could pick it up later. She did.

Then I stopped at another one, where I found a couple more things I'd have to come back and pick up later (although they were thrilled, so that worked out too).

Then I saw it: a stainless steel mini fridge. It's new and I didn't have quite enough for it on me, nor did I have any means to get it home, but she took all the cash I had as a "deposit" and I told her I'd be back between 2 and 3 to pick it up.

Went on my merry way to the picnic, where I had a hard time finding a place to lock up my bike, and eventually my husband and daughter also arrived. We had a yummy lunch and I got to tour the "clean room" where they put together pacemakers and other electronics.

We got to enter drawings for various prizes, but we had to be present to win--and they weren't doing the drawing until 3:00. It was 1:30 and HOT. I begged my husband to let me take the car to go pick up my garage sale finds and he entered the ping pong tournament (I later learned he didn't win a single game).

By time I went back to the garage sales to pick up my finds, the back of his car was so full I couldn't see out the rearview mirror (mostly because of the fridge).

It wasn't until I parked and walked off to go find him at the picnic again that I realized there would not be room for my bike in his car and I would be riding home.

Yeah, yeah, the exercise wasn't going to kill me. However, I was afraid the heat might. I was already pretty uncomfortable sitting in the shade, drinking icewater and pouring it on me. Then I had to leave the shade, strap on a helmet and backpack, and pedal.

It's not a long ride home and I did well for me, but it kinda reinforced that my Catalina goals are a bit far-fetched at the moment. (The Catalina bike course consists of three loops, half of which is a steady uphill--gentle, but steady, and I was poking along going up the hills into my neighborhood.)

I got home and immediately jumped into a cold shower to try and avoid a migraine. It totally worked. For an even better bonus, since my husband beat me home, he unloaded my new fridge and carried it into the house. It's still sitting in the front entryway, but it's in the house.

My daughter and I then headed out for what has become our Saturday night tradition. We grabbed some dinner, set up our seats and watched the outdoor movie put on for free by the city. We get back pretty late, but it is still a lot of fun. This week was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which I was pleasantly surprised with. I don't think my daughter understood it at all.

So I'm still in need of daily stupidity interventions and didn't exactly plan today well, but there were no actual mishaps.

Which is new, and I'll take it.

Trying to Find Focus

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about Catalina. The entry fee, if I sign up right away, would be significantly reduced from last year. However, all the other costs would remain quite similar. I started adding things up, sat down and talked to my husband, and was told I could if I wanted to, but I'd have to figure out how to get it into the budget.

Realistically, Catalina is only 71 days away now. Between being sick for four months and then losing my motivation when I thought the event was cancelled, I'm a bit (and by "a bit" I mean "significantly") off track for meeting the goals I had set for this year.

I know I could complete the triathlon. I also know I could beat my time from last year--my new bike alone would help me do that, although I could improve on the run as well.

I'm really not sure I could take a full hour off my time though, which was my big goal. As for my weight, well, that's not on track to be at my goal either.

I started wondering if I was just making up excuses to not go. But there are two very major factors that all of this doesn't even encompass: 1) I won't be visiting my sister and her family as they are unlikely to be living in the area at that time and 2) by time I pay not just for the entry fee, but all the other fees around the trip (gas, hotels, food, ferry, parking), it really adds up.

I calculated it out--as reasonably as I could, and figure it will be at least $1200. I might be able to figure out how to get that into the budget--it's only $100 a month if I spread it out over a year--but there are a lot of other things we could do, either at $100 a month or at $1200 a year.

Shoot, if I did local events, that could even mean 12 triathlons a year. For the price of one visit to Catalina.

To add another complication, I had to give the judging assigner my availability. The weekend of Catalina is a weekend where there are two meets that are usually 2-day events. I'm not guaranteed to be assigned to one of them, but if I'm in California, there's no way I could do them, assigned or not.

In other words, after sleeping on it, I came to the decision this morning that financially, it would not be wise for me to go to Catalina. Furthermore, it would be somewhat selfish as I would be going on this trip totally alone. I'm unlikely to meet my goal of taking an hour off of my time because of where I am in my training, as negative as that sounds. I couldn't come up with a single good reason to go that would come anywhere close to countering the financial downside of going.

Until this afternoon.

When I started feeling like maybe I was just giving up.

I started thinking about how my motivation to make any kind of change, at all, was initially based around Catalina. The changes I have made have literally changed so many aspects of my life. I still deal with back pain, but it is more manageable now. I am much more active much more regularly (even if I'm not anywhere near any kind of training regimen). All of these are changes I made because I had the long-term goal of Catalina.

If I don't go, what is my goal? Next year? But will I say the same thing next year when it comes time to register? Would I ultimately put it off indefinitely, defeating the purpose?

If Catalina really is my "focal point," then it is completely worth the expense to go.

For anyone who thinks that long-term good health and longevity could be my focal points, let me tell you why that won't work for me: the last 6 years. I totally believe that those are good goals, but for me, they are not enough to get me off my butt in and of themselves. Even the hope of being able to go clothes shopping without drowning myself in an overdose of self-loathing isn't enough motivation for me to do anything big enough, long enough to make an impact.

Having impending physical tasks (the triathlon) actually does motivate me--or at least, significantly better than without.

Now my task is to find what that event will be.

The big question then is, will I remember to put it on my calendar?