last night, we went to mello’s store to get hubby a new pair of running shoes.  while there, we made tentative plans to meet up with them at our plaza later on.  we stopped to do a bit of grocery shopping on our way home and that was where i had a complete stranger make me feel like absolute crap.  hubby and i went up separate aisles.  i was getting some whole wheat pasta when a man approached me.  i’m not a fan of getting approached by strangers to begin with but i try to be genial and unafraid.  this man handed me a card and told me that he knew a program that would help me lose my extra weight.  cue the polite smile while struggling to fight back tears.  why?  why would you say such a thing to someone you don’t know?  i know that i’m not as svelte as i once was but i didn’t realize i had gotten so monstrously huge that a stranger would want to help me lose weight.  luckily, hubby came up the aisle a moment later and he left.  unfortunately, the damage was done and i felt downright lousy for the next couple hours.  good thing we had plans with friends and the fun conversation was enough to pull me out of the funk.  next stranger that tries to talk to me will get an immediate fu. 

this morning we got up early to go meet a guy about some surfboards for sale.  hubby had talked with him last night and made arrangements to meet him at his house at 07:00 to look at the boards.  so…we go up at 06:00… on a saturday.  and we drove a couple towns up to meet this guy.  we called when we were a couple miles from his house to let him know we were just about there and he informed hubby he wasn’t home.  apparently he had emailed hubby but he didn’t bother to check his email at 06:00.  great.  up at the crack of dawn on a saturday for no reason.  luckily, the guy told us to go on into his yard and where to find the boards so we could at least look at them.  we looked them over, called mello for a phone consultation, and called him back.  there were a couple minor (i guess, we really don’t know anything about surfboards) dings that the guy volunteered to patch up.  he’ll fix them and then bring them to us sometime this week.  the good thing about that is that we should be able to arrange to have scooter or mello around to look them over before we make the purchase. 

when we got back home, i made a quick breakfast and then napped on and off the rest of the morning and afternoon.  around 18:00 i decided it was time to get off the couch.  i dragged hubby away from work and we walked down to the park at our plaza to run some laps.  we took the gps with us so that we could finally measure of a mile lap.  it took us three laps to get it right but i think we ended up with the right combination of turns for a 1.03 mile lap.  close enough for government work.  so after our 3.06 miles of running, we walked through the plaza a bit, grabbed some dinner at panera, and then walked back home.  with the roughly four miles of walking there, around, and home, it ended up being seven miles of activity.  not too shabby for a saturday.

in all fairness, i’m sure a big part of my defeat today was due to my complete and total lack of sleep last night.  i blame the hubby.  we got home at a reasonable time last night.  i managed to be very productive before going to bed.  i laid down at a semi-decent time.  i relaxed and started to doze off… and then hubby started tossing and turning.  he rolled and twitched and jerked all over.  he even jumped and claimed a nightmare in which i was trying to kill him by… eating him alive.  after an hour, he fell asleep and proceeded to rest like a baby.  me?  i was awake.  very much awake.  and no matter how hard i tried, i couldn’t get unwound again and i seethed.  ugh!  i slept… not at all.  when the alarm went off at 06:00, i snoozed it angrily and told hubby he sucked.  three minutes later, i grumpily stalked out of bed, through on some walking clothes, and dragged hubby for a walk on the beach.  we had time to get in a forty minute walk but had to turn around a little over twelve minutes into it because we walked straight into a storm.  we tried to beat the rain home but got soaked instead.  luckily, that wasn’t such a bad thing since it’s bloody frikkin hot in florida at 06:00.  so i got a 25-30 minute walk in.  better than nothing, right?  but then, after a quick shower, it started. 

it was immediate…  it was constant…  it was brutal…  it was…

monday

all. frikkin. day.

by 15:20, when i finally took two minutes to run out to the kitchen and grab a pack of poptarts for lunch, i was broken.  as i sat down and took a bite out of my cold poptart and heard the binging of my work instant messenger, i fought back tears.  not only did i not get my lunch hour… i couldn’t even have five minutes to eat a poptart!  absolutely ridiculous.

i shut down as soon after quitting time as i could and attempted a nap but failed miserably because my tummy was extremely upset (if i get another ulcer because of this daggum job… *shaking fist*).  and, since i didn’t get a chance to throw dinner in the crockpot until my 15:20 poptart run, there was no chance of it being done in time for dinner.  tomorrow’s dinner it is.  which means that i had to come up with plan b.  i enjoyed a glass of wine and started to feel like monday was nearing its end.  when it was time to get up and head to bed, i remembered that i needed to finish dealing with the contents of the crockpot and transfer them to a refrigerator bowl.  hubby headed on to bed.  i spent then next fifteen mintes pulling chicken to shreds and digging for a bowl.  which is when i knocked hubby’s full cup of watered-down cranberry juice over making a mess all over the kitchen.  i screamed at monday and proceeded to clean up the huge mess, expecting hubby to get out of bed to find out what was going on and maybe lend a hand.  not a peep.  once i had finally gotten the sticky mess cleaned up and tomorrow night’s dinner put up, i headed into the bedroom and found him sound asleep.  the man who had slept all night last night while i stayed fully awake because he woke me up at the start.  i’m not saying it was right, but i was pissed.  i slammed the door, slammed stuff around on my nightstand while taking my meds, huffed around while bathing all of the sticky juice off my legs and feet, and finally jumped into bed much later than i had wanted.  he slept through it all. 

stupid monday from h3ll!!!

it’s been an off week for orlando visiting.   between being sick and hubby being gone, i’m just not super motivated to be social.  i’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with sissy’s family, which is always a joy.  yesterday, i finally started to feel better.  the sinuses cleared up and i coughed a lot in the morning but even that was lessened throughout the day.  last night was poker night at my cousin’s which is the night i look forward to most when i’m down here.  i am honored that stryker always shows up when we’re in town even though i hear he never shows up anymore. 

i choose to steal the pic writersblock posted because i'm so amused at all of us geeks with our laptops open while playing poker (although the pic was taken before the cards and chips hit the table)

yes, we were all partaking of our various geekyness throughout the poker game; my cousin and i played a game of scrabble on fb while taking everyone else’s poker chips (she finally won when we all went all in, with four side pots, and a bunch of nothing cards).

when i got back to my sissy’s i briefly visited with her and BIL before heading to bed where i was up until 01:00 unable to sleep.  and then i awoke out of a sound sleep right around 02:30 for a severe coughing fit that lasted until close to 04:00.  i’m sure i had the whole house awake listening to me hack up my spleen.  after coughing myself into a massive headache, raw throat, sore chest, and pulled muscle in my back, i finally broke down and took some OTC cough medicine.  within fifteen minutes i had quieted down enough to start trying again for sleep.  it was just a miserable night.  i guess hubby is lucky he wasn’t here as i would have certainly kept him awake.

my sting-ray-flu has hit the road.  i carefully cultivated it all last week so that i could bring it to orlando with me.  as planned, it flourished over the six hour drive down here so that i was feeling far more lousy when i got here than i had during the week.  i have made efforts to spread it around to all of my sissy’s family as well as other relatives and friends, as chronicled below.  you’re all welcome!

saturday sissy’s family accompanied me and hubby to my dad’s for a nice lunch and visit with him and his wife.  saturday night’s plans got postponed due to hubby having to get some work done so we popped in on my cousin instead. 

sunday we went to see my friend’s first house.  i loved her sense of pride as she showed us around and i am impressed with the improvements that they have already made in the last month.  i wish them happy, happy days in that home.  the rest of sunday was lazy.  we got back in time for splashy pool fun but i chose to nap instead.  when i awoke, i went down and sat next to the hot tub while hubby, sissy, and BIL soaked.  no way was i getting in a hot tub on a 94° afternoon!  the rest of the evening was passed with dinner, a bit of the magic game, and a movie.

i didn’t even go to yoga wednesday night because i felt so crummy.  we did go to the bridge run last night though and it seriously kicked my butt.  turned out i was much less up for it than i thought. 

i was in a pretty good mood when i started since i found some animals to watch on the backside of the pond.  and i had a big smile when a strange man was walking toward our group and several of the men-folk stopped and turned to watch me and make sure the man kept on walking past.  it was nice to feel so protected.  and then i felt like i was actually a bit faster on the first leg since i was already heading downhill when i met the first group coming back over the bridge.  that’s never happened before so either i was going faster or they were all going slower (which, unfortunately, is a possibility since most of them are doing the half-iron this weekend so they are tapering down but i prefer to think i was being a speed-demon). 

at the other end of the bridge, it all started to go downhill, so to speak.  i decided to add some distance by veering off through the college and circling back up to the road.  this was a mistake.  it seemed like it took forever to get back to the bridge and i was wary because i was by myself (no worries, cousin, my pepper-spray was tucked safely inside my purse back in the car) and no one knew where i had gone so there would be no men-folk watching protectively if strangers passed.  by the time i finally started climbing over the bridge again, i was done.  i’m talking D-O-N-E.  i wanted so badly to walk.  luckily, my hubby must have seen my struggle and, instead of finishing his second lap over, he turned and slowed drastically to jog with me all the way back to the car.  it was so nice to have company when i was feeling so shot.  he kept telling me i was doing great and i could make it.  he was highly encouraging even though i couldn’t stop gasping out expletives.  and i did make it back to the car without slowing to a walk.  based on the overall time and my assumed pace, i’m guessing i did between 3.7 and 3.8 miles.  i’m not sure if it was feeling crappy or the fact that i didn’t do my tuesday run that made it so much tougher.  i really think that the tuesday run helps on thursdays.

i woke up this morning with a sore throat.  i assumed that i was just dried out from a night under the a/c and fan… maybe i slept with my mouth open or something.  sadly, it has only gotten worse throughout the day.  and i feel sniffly.  and my head is still throbbing like it has been the last three or four days.  didn’t i just go through the flu?  that’s gotta fill my sick quota for the next three years or so.  knowing my luck, i’ve probably got alligator cold or whatever is the next animal-related-chicken-little-disease that’s going to kill us all!

i tell ya, give the girl the flu and she just stops ranting altogether!  what can i say?  last week was totally miserable.  i’ve never in my life been hit that hard by the flu.  i’ve never run a fever for five days straight and i wanted to die a bit.  i am thankful that it was just the flu and strep throat because if i had had a stomach bug on top of that… i may have had to swan dive off the balcony.  so, though i had no energy to post here, i did have stuff to say.  snippets of posts that never were:

• we followed up our wildy young work-night with a friday night at our favorite hangout to see a band we hadn’t seen there before.  they were craptastic.  i won’t even call them a cover band as they were purely karaoke – no original sound whatsoever.  the lead “singer” hurt my soul when he started doing the axl rose mic-stand-dance during sweet child o mine and i was appalled when gives you hell came on and i remarked at how much they sounded like all american rejects just to realize that none of them were singing.  not even lip-syncing.  they were just playing their instruments in the background while the cd played.  we only stayed until midnight, two sets was all we could take of music mockery. 
• the next morning, i set my alarm (on a saturday!) and got up early to go to the mall group run.  i remarked to hubby how i felt strangely flu-like because my neck and shoulders were stiff and i hadn’t swum laps in days.  i brushed it off figuring that i had just slept wrong.   the group run was just me and mello (hubby had a board meeting at our condo) and he was having sciatic pain so we mostly walked.  i’m glad that i went because he’s a trainer and it gave me the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with him to get some pointers on my running.  i felt much better about things after talking with him for that hour.  by the time i got back home, i was shivering cold and wrapped myself in two blankets on the couch.  a few hours later i realized that i was running a heck of a fever and hubby was packing up to go to bama for his mom’s birthday.  my flu was to be a lonely journey.
• i totally expected to be better after a couple days.  we had already planned on taking last tuesday afternoon off for the all american rejects concert and i was really looking forward to it.  instead of having fun at a concert, i found myself breaking down and going to the dr tuesday afternoon.  it was day four of not being able to get my temp below 101°.  it sucked laying in the back of the car right across the street from where the concert was taking place while hubby was in filling my prescriptions.  stupid friggin flu.
• steroids rock – my throat and ears felt so much better that night after just one dose.
• when my sissy relayed to BIL that i was waiting in the car while hubby was in the pharmacy he assumed i was pregnant.  i don’t follow the logic there but sorry to disappoint.
• i’m amazed that i had a one-day work week last week and it was the longest week of my life.
• after being cooped up all week, i finally felt up to a walk to our mall sunday.  we walked down there, had a yummy dinner (solid food, no more soup!!!), walked around the plaza a bit, and walked back home.  it was fabulous to get out and get some fresh air finally but i was exhausted by the time we made it back home.  energy replenishment promises to take a while.
• the cough and sinus congestion refuse to let up as well.
• it was a gorgeous, cool, open-window weekend.  perfect for airing the germy stuffiness out of the house.
• hubby abandoned me again monday.  he’ll be back friday and i miss him like crazy.
• prayers are needed all over including:
  • my dad’s wife totaled her car monday.  thankfully, she’s okay other than seat-belt bruises but she’s sore and shook up.
  • my friend katie’s 7yo son is recovering from yet another brain surgery yesterday.  it was unplanned but, fortunately, “minor” (can brain surgery be minor?!) and he came through with flying colors.  he’s such a trooper!
  • my 8yo niece’s friend is battling cancer.  that’s just wrong on every level.  no, the kids don’t know.
  • the wife of the youth pastor at my sissy’s church is fighting lower-body-paralysis (hopefully temporary) after childbirth. 

it’s official… i am past the “wow, i’m doing this!” and back to “exercising depresses the #($& out of me.”  excellent. 

i walked a lot more than i have been.  i did one full lap of the bridge plus about another quarter back up until i met back up with hubby.  my thought was that i’d meet up with him and then he’d slow down and go back to the parking lot with me so i turned around as he passed, looked up, and he was just about out of sight.  *deep sigh*  a lot of the men were great about offering up words of encouragement to me as they passed by but it just didn’t help.  i walked most of the way back to the parking lot (i have NEVER walked that stretch because it’s exposed and i don’t like to be alone on it any longer than i have to) because it was taking every bit of energy that i had left in me not to burst into tears.  i wanted to cry so badly.  still do.  WTF am i thinking that i’m going to sign up for a half-marathon in october.  there’s no chance. 

so my whole way back i was trying really hard to cheer myself up so that i wouldn’t cry.  i said, self, you’ve been sick all week…you were puking all day tuesday…you’ve had no activity since last friday… it’s inexplicably sunny for the run now… you have no music to keep your energy up (mental note: charge shuffle)…  

and then i wanted to cry even more because it’s all just excuses.  seems like every week i’ve got a list of excuses for why i suck so badly.  it’s really quite exhausting. 

i’m not quitting.  i really like the community that the group offers and, unfortunately, the thursday run is the most popular event.  not to mention that somewhere very deep within me i still hold onto hope that, one day, i’ll actually be able to do two full laps of the bridge.  i’m just praying that next week is a better week though because i don’t know how long i’ll be able to hold up if my attitude remains this way.  really, i just wanted to throw myself into traffic and be done with it tonight.

Hubby has been lecturing me for years that if I were more active and tired my body out, I would sleep better. I’ve always scoffed at the notion because i’ve been way more active since meeting hubby than I ever was in my life and the insomnia hasn’t changed. Well, these last few weeks I have been Wearing. My. Body. OUT! Seriously, folks, this swimming and running is kicking my butt. And since I started all of this new, more vigorous activity… I do not sleep. Period.

So, after hours of laying in bed tonight, tossing and turning and wishing horrible curses upon soundly-sleeping-hubby, I realized that it’s just one more of our differences. If you know us, you know that we have nothing in common. So, the difference is that his body is just more intelligent than mine. When his body gets physically tired, it knows that it needs to recharge. When my body is worn out, it gets ticked off and restless. My body has too much attitude and not enough smarts to recharge itself. Which makes no sense at all since mine is a newer model and I’m pretty sure recharging wasn’t even invented yet when his was built. He’s ahead of his time.

The alarm will be going off in less than an hour and a half. I rolled around in bed (and not in a happy-fun way), with no comfort in sight, all I could stand. I got up, peed, walked around the condo, ate yogurt, stood outside watching waves, and generally gave up on the hope of sleep tonight. With the exception, of course, of finally falling into a deep, peaceful sleep 10-15 minutes before the alarm goes off. You know… to ensure that I feel as crappy as possible for the rest of the day. I guess instead of hating him for his ability to effortlessly find sleep, I should just chalk it up to one more thing to hate about my body.

yesterday was a long day, with a long drive, and an unhappy night. at least i’m home. and do you know what’s on sci-fi at 03:00? rediculously ginormous mosquitos and spectacularly horrible acting.

i’m finally feeling not totally like crap today. it was a rough weekend with me being sick and so much needing to get done. we went shopping and erranding after work friday. i started out feeling not so bad but by the time we got home at 23:00 i felt awful. i did give blood, which may have been a bad thing but it makes me feel better about myself and i needed that. i got hubby to give blood too. i was pleased to set a new personal record for bloodletting of four minutes flat. beat that, cousin! we then went out to town where we bought groceries, window treatments, a home theatre system, a bookcase to house it, and new dinnerware. very exciting (and expensive) purchases. when we got home, hubby immediately started playing with his new toy. there were speakers all over the floor while he got it all hooked up to see how it all would work. i started loading the new dishes (they’re so pretty!) and flatware into the dishwasher but didn’t make it too far until i collapsed. saturday, i layed on the couch and supervised while hubby assembed the bookcase, put up the window treatments, and hooked up the theater system (on the bookcase). we then had more errands that had to be run. while waiting for the elevator, a little blue fly landed on my foot and i shooed him away. when we got back home, i resumed my couch position and took some more meds to kick the cold. sunday, i woke up to find my ankle swollen to roughly three times it’s natural size. yes, that stupid little blue fly! i spent the whole day coating it in hydrocortizone and downing antihistamines. it was swollen so badly i could hardly walk because i couldn’t put any weight on that foot. i really don’t understand why i’m having such severe bug reactions lately. it wouldn’t have anything to do with my thyroid, right? it’s so strange. as you’d guess, sunday turned out to be another watch the hubby work kind of day. yesterday, we had dental appointments in the morning and stopped to pick up the sheets which finally came in and get another bottle of antihistamines. the swelling was down to about twice normal size. last night i was able to get some stuff done – general straightening and preparing for company. today, i’m feeling mostly better, no more congestion and swelling is mostly gone (ankle still hurts though), but i’m exhausted. i guess it’s just from my body having so much to fight the last few days. it’s just worn down. nevertheless, i have to do some more cleaning tonight. i have to finish cleaning our bathroom and clean the floors throughout. if i could just get a bit of a nap first…

i have never had a boomerang cold before but at 01:12 i woke up feeling worse than i had all week. it was a miserable night of coughing and sniffling and getting up to blow my nose and itchy eyes and congestion headache. how does that happen after feeling mostly fine the last two days? the crummy thing is that i’d like to give blood today but i don’t think you’re supposed to when you’re sick. granted, i can probably mask it for the brief duration of blood-letting, but is that wrong? there’s another blood drive going on monday but we’ve got dentist appointments so i know we’re not going to have the time for it. we’ll see. maybe, just maybe, i’ll get feeling all better by this afternoon.

after taking some nyquil as soon as work was over yesterday, i decided to finish off my paint projects. i am pleased to report that not only did i not pass out while painting, but everything looks great as well. that is it for painting right now. can i get a woooohoooo! and, once i get in there and clean the bathroom so that it can be reassembled, we’ll have three rooms completed. YIPPEEE! as for me, i’m very close to calling it a day and going back to bed.

i AM NOT getting sick, thankyouverymuch. it was a tiringly productive weekend. we did go out and have some fun friday night and had a little down time saturday, but mostly the weekend was about getting things done. copious quantities of family coming in t-minus-ten days. saturday we did some shopping. i don’t know why the economy is in such poor shape these days, i think we’ve been spending more than we ever have. when we got back from errands and purchasing, we took a bit of time to check out the upcoming neighbor. there is a 53 acre planned community that is slowly coming in next door. yesterday was the first time that we really got the chance to go over there and get information about the overall plan and progress. we were really impressed and i will be thrilled when the get the next phase done, which should get started late this summer. that phase will be the “main street” area. it should be a great shopping/dining area within a five minute walk of home. after we were through with that, we walked down to the waterford-like plaza a mile away and grabbed some dinner and then walked back home along the beach. when we got back home, we could not actually get home because they had a wedding set up in such a way that they completely blocked off the beach access to the building. i was ticked. i have no problem with people getting married in my back yard but it is unacceptable for them to block public walkways. while i quietly fumed, we took a seat on a beach lounger and watched a wedding. i love weddings. when the ceremony was finally over, the entire wedding moved down to the water’s edge where they all lined up with the new mr & mrs to throw pebbles into the surf. that was our chance to use the walkway and head home. i was happy to get back to my air conditioning since it was insanely hot out running errands all day. it’s bearable at home because there’s usually a gulf-breeze, but if you’re not directly on the beach, it’s awful. i provided minimal assistance to the hubby as he finished installing the cabinet hardware in the kitchen and bathrooms and we got to bed at a decent hour. yesterday, we lounged around a bit in the morning and then got into full swing just afternoon. i masked and painted the stripe in the bathroom. it was appalling that it took ALL AFTERNOON to get that one little stripe painted but i am very pleased and proud at how it came out. a little touchup around the ceiling in there and the bathroom will be ready to be reassembled. i’m looking forward to getting another room crossed off the list. while i was working on the bathroom, hubby added some shelves to a closet in our room and installed a new light fixture in the kitchen (the old one got fried a couple weeks ago when we had constant power flickers all day long). it looks better than the old one (which just looked like a big hospital light) but i still just don’t really care for the look of the big fluorescent ceiling lights. i would have preferred a nice looking fixture or track lights or something but that would have required drilling new holes in the concrete ceiling which would have just been too much work. at least this light has some aesthetic design to it and some satin nickel elements that help it to match with everything else. anyhow, all of the projects kept it from being a very restful weekend and my body thinks that’s its queue to get all lousy feeling. it’ll be lots of oranges and cranberry juice for me today.