Midweek update...

Tuesday night's class run was better, and the new shoes are good, except both feet's toes were tingly/numb. My coach showed me how to tie them differently, thinking they might be too tight across the middle, therefore impeding full circulation. Last night's run on my own was ok, and better on the toes, but my left leg was bothering me.....a weird hollow aching pain from mid shin down thru mid foot, including the ankle. I guess it's just my lower body trying to adjust?? I hope my body will get used to this running thing!! I iced the shins last night and put the pain gel on before bed, and this morning took an Aleve......all the things my coach advised. Tonite we have another class, so hopefully all will go well.

I got my hair done last night (yay!) before my run.....she toned down the highlights, so I'm looking darker again for fall, and I like it. This morning I was putting on my makeup and I tilted my head back, and one of those weird painful "pings" went thru the left side of my neck (just when I'm recovering from the previous week+ of pain!), and it hurt SO bad.....it felt like a bolt of lightning radiating down my neck......OUCH!!! I hope it's not a sign of things to come. :-(

My sister Laura comes to Dallas tonite with her Y co-workers, to go to Dallas Mania downtown. My dad is also coming up tomorrow for the weekend; he and Tim are going to a classic boat show at Lake Lewisville on Saturday, and I will have the QUIET house to myself for most of the day (yay!), after me and Lucy try the Social Run again at 7am (followed by breakfast at Einstein's Bagels!). I hope it goes better than last Saturday, but Lucy said she'd stay with me, no matter how slow I am......LOVE her!! :-)

Post-birthday week/weekend #2

Well, this past week was a mixture of pain and new things. I woke up on Sat the 15th with a neck pain that extended down to my shoulderblade (left side). It did not go away, and by Wednesday I was in so much pain that I opted to stay home from work, as it was causing a really bad headache by that time. I got in for a massage at Massage Envy, and it hurt, but it did help. The therapist they'd scheduled me with was really good. I had done some online research on the Baylor Scoliosis Center in Plano, and called to schedule an appointment, which won't be until Sept 1st. They will take new xrays and compare them with my previous ones and see what to do next. I tell you, daily pain is NO FUN, and my goal is to get rid of it all, if possible. If that ends up meaning surgery, I guess that's what will have to happen, even though I'd rather not.

So the "new things" part is that I signed up for Running 101 with my friend Lucy at RunOn (at her suggestion; she wanted a running buddy). Everyone knows I am a walker, not a runner, but I thought I'd give it a try, since they were gonna teach me to run. Monday night was a lecture for about an hour, then Tuesday was the "magic mile", where we run/walk a mile for time to see what group we'll be put in. My time was 13:57 (slow!), so I am in the slow group (cutoff was 13 mins). But that's ok, cuz I KNOW I'm slow! Then Thursday we got into our groups and met our coaches. (BTW, Lucy is not in the same group as me, as her time was 11:06, because she is used to jogging.) Our group did 20 mins of 2 mins running, 1 min walking, and I did surprisingly well. I was 4th for most of the 20 mins, until the last segment, when the 3 people in front of me decided to walk the rest, so I came in first and under 20 mins! How can I run while in pain or with my back issues, you ask? The weird thing is that my neck/shoulder pain does not hurt while I'm running. I guess the pain transfers to my legs and feet! I am having shin issues, but I do have old shoes. I was fitted for new running shoes, and Tim found some online for $50 cheaper than RunOn, so they will get here on Monday the 24th, just in time for my next running class!

Saturday mornings at 7am, RunOn has a "social run", so me/Lucy/Tim went for the first time. It was good for Tim, since he's a runner, but for me, it was not so good. Lucy had to stay with me as the rest of the group left us behind. My legs did not want to cooperate that day. We were in a park in Coppell, so we weren't lost, but the Coppell HS CC team was hogging the trail, and they don't know how to share, and they don't have any trail manners either. We finally saw part of the group when we went to the other side of the park, and the coach walked back to the store with us. We saw Tim running with some other guy, so they went another couple of miles before they returned to the store. Afterwards, Tim went home and I went to Einstein's Bagels with Lucy for coffee and bagels. :-)

That night, we'd already had plans to eat my belated birthday dinner at Pappadeaux's with Robert & Lucy, so we picked them up around 7pm and we rode to the restaurant with the top down on my new Volvo. It was the perfect night to ride in a convertible! After dinner, we went back to their house to see their new kitchen, play Rock Band, and Mexican Train. I believe I got to bed at 3:45am.....UGH!!

Post-birthday weekend 1

Aug 14-16: went to Taylor for the annual BBQ Cookoff, but it was our first time to go. They still needed judges for Saturday, so Tim and I volunteered. We got to taste test seafood and wild game. (No contest here as to which one was better!) Some of the wild game I couldn't identify, and they don't tell you what it is either. My BIL David got 1st place in wild game, for the 2nd year in a row! His team also got 1st place in showmanship, so he took home 2 big trophies to add to his collection. :-)

On Sunday, we went to go see Grandpa at the nursing home in Granger, but evidently he had just laid down for his post-lunch nap, and he was OUT! Apparently we just missed seeing Grandma too, as she had left just before he went down for the nap. So we just left him a note and went back to Thrall so we could pack up to go home.

My 43rd Birthday

So, I was off Friday for my birthday, to start my birthday weekend. Friday was good: got my nails done and had my first-ever pedicure, went to a late "birthday lunch" at TGIFridays with Tim, then we ran some errands. Tim got me a dive watch and two vases full of flowers. Later though, I had a little stomach ache.....thought I just ate too much or it was the side-effects from the Dairy Queen Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard (the lactose thing). However, I spent most of Saturday afternoon & evening with a stomach ache, and I had to cancel our evening out with friends. :-( BUMMER!!!

Sunday I felt better and finally got to lay by/in the pool for a few hours and started reading a new book. I just didn't feel like it on Saturday, with it being so hot and having a stomach ache, just not a good combination. Then last night we were able to go to "birthday dinner" at Carino's, and get my free dessert (we picked the Turtle Cheesecake.....YUM!). I was a little uncomfortable by the time we got home, but finally got my stomach to settle down so I could go to sleep, and schlep back to work today.

Tim takes really good care of me, and I'm very thankful for that! He also went to the store on Saturday night to get our pets some food (the cats had run out and Katie wouldn't eat hers anymore, since she'd been throwing up during the week), so we're all very thankful for that as well! He takes care of so much around the house, and lets me relax, and I love him for it all!! :-)

Getting antsy....

In 2 days, I'll be 43 years old (EEK!!). Oh, WHY does Obama's birthday happen to be in the same week as mine?!? I haven't read a book or sat by the pool in 3 weeks, and it's almost making me crazy. Granted, being out-of-town for the past two weekends has been nice (seeing friends at my 25th class reunion [see, I'm OLD!!], and visiting family), but I'm a sun-loving Leo, and I need my sun/pool time ya'll!! Since this is my birthday weekend, I expect to spend some time by the pool, before I completely lose my tan! The wonderful color I had from the Belizean sun has faded, and now all I have is my Texas color, plus a little from the tanning bed. However, Tim won't let me fake-n-bake anymore since that cancer study came out on tv last week, so I have 2 free Versa spray tans coming from Planet Tan, which I'll use after I can no longer bake by the pool. I still have no idea what I want to do on Friday, except maybe sleep late and get a massage (I won a free one from Massage Envy on Twitter), and I have no idea where I want to eat for my birthday dinner....what a tough decision, huh? :-)

Happy Birthday today to Alysee, the lady who does my nails!!
Happy Birthday tomorrow to Kirk/"KC", one of my first friends when I moved to Dallas!!