Tonight is one of the two most important nights of the year…The first Carolina vs. Duke game is tonight. The game is on RAYCOM for the locals and ESPN for everyone else (that’s right, the game is so important is it on more than one channel) at 9pm. This game will help determine my mood from now until March 8th (the date of the second game) so if nothing else route for Carolina for Susan’s sake.
Archive for February, 2009
First Of The Two Most Important Days Of The Year
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009I Have All The Good Books
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009I have been on the other end of Susan’s book slump lately. I recently finished reading “To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry”. It was a really good book. If any of you that don’t live in North Carolina want to know how we think about the rivalry this is the book. The author was funny and very accurate about how Carolina fans fell about Duke.
I am also almost finished reading Eric Clapton’s autobiography. This is also a really good book if you are a music fan. It is amazing that he is still alive with all the drugs and drinking he did. Once he got clean he opened a rehab center and in a effort to raise money for it he auctioned off a lot of his guitars. He got $959,500 for his famous “blackie” guitar and after hearing that Susan says that we are going to auction my guitars. I keep telling her that I am not famous and we will never get that much for them (not to mention I’m not getting rid of them) but she remains optimistic.
The scales must be broken…
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009Paul and I decided we are the only people in the world that can train for a marathon and gain weight. I think the scale is wrong. Although it is telling me my body fat is dropping. We have one of those goofy Tanita weight/body comp things. I decided that there are a multitude of issues wrong w the scale: 1–It considers me dehydrated, 2–it considers me overhydrated, 3–the humidity from the shower is messing it up, 4–Paul is stepping on it behind me (even when he is at work), 5–my feet are wet from the shower, 6–did I say dehydrated?
So I decided that I was going to go back to measuring out food (I even have a healthy food message ready when Anna asks me what I am doing so I don’t scar her w weight issues). Paul has a scale so it makes it even more precise…when it works. It told me that it only takes like 2 pecans and a raisin to equal 300 calories? When did THAT happen? Yet 3 cups of spinach leaves and 3 pinches of feta crumbles is only about 60 calories. Sheesh. I wonder how many calories that Valentine’s Hershey bar was today? I was craving a candy bar for about 3 hours. By the time I gave in I needed the king size. Yep, needed it. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Fiber–yeah, don’t even get me started. All I gotta say is never go from 0 to 18 g in 1 day. Nuff said.
Projects in Progress
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009I alluded to this topic on my goal page so I thought I would elaborate a bit. I don’t want it to seem like we don’t have follow through b/c hey– we are pretty stubborn people when you get right down to it. Its just some projects take an odd spin sometimes. For example, Paul disconnected the speakers when we had our floors put in. He has spent the equivalent of an entire weekend army crawling in and out of the crawl space under the house trying to run the wires…unsuccessfully. He talked to his friend Brian and has a new plan so we have a new angle to tackle it from. Those kind of things–anyone who owns a home knows what I am talking about! So here is the list of things that we need to complete before moving on to bigger and better (ok, just new and different) home improvement projects:
- Finish wiring back speakers in living room. See above.
- Change handles on Tyler’s dresser. My old dresser, they all broke off–not sure what the deal was there. It was fine, then we moved it and it was not fine. Kind of like the stroke of midnight for Cinderella. You would think this was an easy task–NO handles fit the current holes. We bought several kinds, then finally just took measurements to Lowe’s and I went through EVERY HANDLE THEY HAD. So we need to drill holes, but when we had time to do that, the drill was under the house where Paul left it one afternoon in disgust over project #1.
- Susan’s mtn bike. Paul has been fixing it up for me for a year. Last thing is putting on new tires. FYI–sitting in a shed year round for about 8 years is not good for tires nor tubes. Who knew??
- Paint touch ups. Amazing how many things you don’t see until the can is hammered closed and the brushes are clean.
- Finish peg board and bike maintenance shelf. Paul thinks we are done. Little does he know how much more purging, I mean organizing we can do to his shelf! Muuuuaaaaahahhahahahahhahahahh!!!
So that is our lil list o’ fun. Does that make you feel any better for not getting a call back from us? 
UPDATE 2.11.09: Paul did the handles last night, then Tyler vacuumed out the drawers. He is fired UP about chores! (Tyler, not Paul). 1 down, 4 to go!
Book slump
Monday, February 9th, 2009I should not have bragged about the great book I had read. I have not had a hit since. I have a list of books I want to read, but the library has them all checked out. So I went to Amazon last time from the library’s computers and searched for the books I wanted. You know how Amazon then says, “People who liked THAT also liked THIS.” Well, I then searched the library system for THAT book. And so on until they actually had one. It is palatable, but not exciting. Bummer since we are driving forever to Myrtle this weekend. Elli sent me her book club list so I can search that at the ‘brary, not sure I will have time before the trip though. If you have any book suggestions I would love to hear them–although nothing with the words dark, death, evil, murder, etc in the title (I get scared easily). My friend Erin linked me to a website that recommends books and then you post what you are reading, but I cannot find the link now.
Now THAT’s what I’m talking about!!
Sunday, February 8th, 2009My friend Susan J has a blog titled, “Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Be in Carolina” while she is attending IU’s MBA program. Let me tell you–NOTHING could be more true this weekend. It was 70 and sunny both days. Saturday afternoon Anna and I hung out at the park and went for a walk w my friends Lauren, Cathy and Ruthan. Tyler paced Paul on his bike for Paul’s 5 mile run {{I also ran yesterday, but I did it at 8am when it was 31 degrees out–we had to take shifts since we had the kids this weekend}}. Today Paul and I rode 42 miles w his friend Tamara. It was GORGEOUS!
We are both taking it easy as we both feel pretty beat leading into marathon week. We both have foot pain, although mine is longer standing and on the upswing IMHO. Paul has been feeling sick for about 5 days. I actually got him to take some medicine tonight. Probably only b/c I told him it was what I took during the Ironman when I had his same symptoms. We plan to take our multi-vitamins each day and each active culture yogurt. Lauren tells me 90% of your immune system is in your GI tract. Keep it healthy people!!
Why Is It So Cold In The South?
Thursday, February 5th, 2009Lately our marathon training hasn’t been too fun. Last weekend it was cold all weekend and I didn’t run. Susan went early Saturday morning before Tyler’s basketball game and when she got home her hair was frozen. I ran during lunch on Monday and it was actually pretty nice out. Good thing I went at lunch because by the time I got home it was turning cold and getting cloudy, it ended up snowing Monday night. Then on Tuesday we went for a run with it snowing like crazy. It had just started snowing when we left and it wasn’t really sticking so slipping wasn’t a problem, it was just hard to see and cold from the wind. Yesterday we were suppose to run when we got home but it was 30 degrees with the wind chill in the 20′s so we decided not to go. This morning it was 18 with a wind chill of 9 and suppose to stay cold all day so I don’t know if I will run again.
Thankfully the marathon is only 9 days away because we are both ready to stop running in this weather. The weather is suppose to get better starting this weekend and we are looking forward to that. It is suppose to be 65 on Sunday so we are planning on riding between 30 and 40 miles. We have hardly been on our bikes at all because of the weather so the 63 mile ride the day after the marathon should be fun. As of right now they are saying it will be a low of 44 and a high of 61 and no rain in Myrtle Beach on the day of the marathon (which is slightly warmer than they were saying when I looked earlier this morning) so we are crossing our fingers that that forecast holds up.
On another note, I went and saw a doctor about my foot problem and he said I have sesamoiditis (which hurts like crazy!!!). He said that it was common for people with arches as high as mine to have this problem. He also said that I am “not exactly a small marathon runner”, which I thought was funny, and that contributes to the problem. He made me some temporary orthodics to see if they help and if they do he is going to make me some perminant ones. I haven’t done a long run in them yet but so far they seem to be working which my feet are VERY happy about. He also thinks that my knee problems are coming from instability because of my feet so he thinks the orthodics will help with that also.