i was in a pretty dark place when i disappeared from here back in 2011. i won’t dwell on that. a brand new, sparkly year has come around and it is going to be a great one! afterall, it’s ’13… my lucky number! 2012 ended up being a pretty good year in its own right.

• after spending the month of december 2011 and january 2012 in the hospitals with hubby’s mom (stroke) and my dad (broken hip), everyone was healthy and happy for the holidays this year. MIL is still working hard on her road to recovery and dad has a new health concern that has left him doing monthly treatments all year but they are still in our lives and they are back to enjoying their own lives (dad is especially enjoying his retirement that he finally earned in 2012!).
• i signed up for my 3rd half marathon and sold my registration after a month of training.  i wasn’t feeling it and i have no regrets about it.  it was a great decision.
• i dropped 40 pounds in seven months by making healthy choices.  i exercised more regularly (aquajogging rawks!), watched my portions better, and became more conscientious of where my calories were coming from (no, i do not need that giant glass of milk every night with dinner, no matter how much i love it!).  i now fit into clothes i haven’t been able to wear in about eight years.  sadly, i had just given away the majority of my skinny clothes a couple months before i started this life change so it was a heavy shopping year. 
• i gained back five of those pounds over vacation and the holidays but i’m so not worried about that.
• vacation was epic!  it’ll take me forever to get the travel log finished since there are over 3k photos for me to sort through and narrow down but it was a month of living history.  hubby and i both hit our #1 bucket list destinations (israel and egypt, respectively) and so much more.  i still can’t believe we saw all that we saw. 
• my brudder gave me a new niece and she is perfection.



• we moved into a new home, which is almost the same as our previous home except that we no longer have noise above us.  the moving stress was nearly too much for me but we are doing all the upgrades we always wanted to do and it is turning into a gorgeous, if slightly smaller, home.

the most important thing about 2012 is that we got back to focusing on fun and happiness and i quit letting so much gloom in.  the fact that everyone keeps complementing me on my svelteness has also helped my self-esteem.

does anyone remember teenage years filled with angst and drama?  times when you just knew that your life was crumbling around you but all the adults around you would say that it was nothing and you were just a teenager and it was all just silly, childhood insecurity?  and then, as much as you swore they were wrong, deep down it felt a little better to be reminded that things would be better when you grew up?  but what they never actually told you is that the angst and insecurity and drama doesn’t go away as you grow up?  it’s still there…  the stakes are just a lot higher?  the repercussions and consequences go deeper?   and you just keep wishing that you would grow out of it already?

yeh, me neither…

some friends of ours host an annual memorial day weekend party at their sister’s lake house. we went last year and had an awesome time. this year, they totally outdid themselves by booking our favorite atlanta band, the bastard suns. i really don’t know how they can possibly top this one.

we got there early in the afternoon and i immediately joined the floatillion in the water while hubby headed straight to the boat with mello to get the skurfing started.

there was a lot of floating around

when scooter and sunny showed up with the suns, i got out for a while to hang out with sunny on the beach. one of these days we need to figure out how to teach her to swim so she can feel comfortable getting in the water with us.

and hanging out on the "beach"

aside from floating, there were plenty of activities. watersports included the skurfing and wakeboarding on the boat, jet skis, and the extremely popular yolo boards. on the beach there was volleyball, bocce ball, ladder ball, bean bag toss, and horseshoes.

hubby paddling by

it was a terrific day but things definately cranked up after sundown.

when the sun went down, the party got loud

mello and nightingale’s oldest son started out the entertainment with his two-person band, it’s not lupus.

"it's not lupus" was the opening band

everyone brought their chairs and blankets up from the beach to relax and be entertained.

hubby and me, enjoying the show

after it’s not lupus, the bastard suns took the “stage”. we’ve been to many of their shows but it was something special to have hung out with them all day and then have a private show from them. the sound was spectacular, though i’m not sure how much the neighbors around the lake appreciated it. they played at least a dozen songs, including rip which they rarely perform live but they played it in honor of all of the men/women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. they also played every time i drink, another rare live song which i begged them to play at the last show we went to and they promised “next time”. it was such a great show!

our own private concert from "the bastard suns"

best suns show ever!

after the suns played, there was some makeshift karoake including a suns number sung butchered by hubby, clydesdale, and scooter. the suns suffered through it and advised them not to leave their songs to them. the party went on late into the night before air matresses started to get blown up and laid out all over the house. the next morning several people, including our hosts clydesdale and chef, got up at daylight to get in some final skurfing and yolo boarding. after a hearty breakfast, graciously provided by chef and her sis-in-law (the home owner), our hosts conked out from exhaustion and we headed home.

     

the rest of the pix can be viewed here.

of course, we all know that memorial day is not just about cooking out and having fun. it’s a time to remember all of those who have paid the highest possible price to buy our nation’s freedom and safety. monday morning started with me weeping my way through the film taking chance. if you haven’t seen it, you should. it is beautifully done.

i can’t believe i got it up that quickly but, for those interested, our anniversary cruise is posted here.

hubby is now half of an iron man!  he completed his first 70.3 event this past weekend and i couldn’t be more proud of him.  for those not in the know, a half iron distance triathlon consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile (half marathon) run.  below is a short storyboard of his journey but the rest of the photos can be found here.

diving in (red wetsuit)

smiling after 1.2 miles in the gulf

a nice wave to the wife on his way out to the bike course

back after 56 miles of pedalling

looking good at the start of the run

that is 100% awesomeness crossing the finish line after a 13.1 mile run!

"1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run... and your hair still looks great!!!"

so after hubby spent several hours on the phone yesterday evening trying to figure out what had happened with our cruise and trying to correct it, things looked pretty dismal.  i even went ahead and let my boss know that i would probably be working next week after all.  the cruise we were supposed to do was now full and the cruise line informed us that they would put us on a wait-list but that there was only a 5% chance of us getting on, which was what the travel agent had told us as well. 

 in an effort to turn his wife’s frown upside down, hubby spent his lunch break today trying to find an alternate cruise for this weekend.  pretty much everything is booked.  i think he found a cabin on a different cruise line out of new orleans but it was single bunk beds.  yeh, not for our anniversary.  then he tried one on the cruise line we were supposed to be going with out of tampa but they only had a super swanky cabin for something like $2k more than the cruise we lost.  nope. 

BUT… as hubby was getting ready to hang up, they told him that he should try the cruise out of mobile.  WAIT A SECOND!  that’s the cruise we were supposed to be on that was fully booked and we were wait-listed!  it was more expensive than when we had originally booked and hubby hung up with the cruise line and called the travel agent to give them a chance to make things right for us.  they were able to book the cabin for us at the higher rate and then reluctantly offered some onboard credit to make up for some of it – of course that was after hubby kept reminding him that we wouldn’t be going through all this if he had done things correctly the first time around.  i still don’t think they’ve done enough to fix things but hubby is in charge of that.  and i’ll definitely be posting some reviews of their agency when we return.  like i’ve said, i have no problem with someone or a business making a mistake but they sure as heck ought to take responsibility and make it right. 

in any case, out of a pure stroke of right time/right place, my husband managed to get us on the fully booked cruise that we thought we were going to be on to begin with.  i immediately started the online check-in process and it appears that we’re good to go.  i’m not going to get overly excited until we’re on the ship, in our room, and pulling away from port.  right now, i’m still fairly irked that they managed to make the most relaxing possible vacation into a huge stress, but i’m cautiously optimistic that we will be at sea and sipping champagne for our anniversary.

*UPDATE – 24may2011*
so i got a call from the agent’s boss the day after this post.  he wanted to be sure that we had been able to do the online check-in with the cruise line and that everything had worked out right.  he also asked for our mailing address and stated that he wanted to send us a token of apology.  i thanked him for his effort and calmly mentioned that i was just relieved that our vacation hadn’t been spoiled by such a frustrating experience.  i stated that i was still disappointed that we not only had to go through all the stress but that we also ended up paying a good bit more than we thought we were spending when we originally booked this weeks ago.  i was not confrontational and i was not emotional, i simply stated my feelings quietly and courteously.  at that point, the man stated that he was going to send us a check for the difference.  that’s it.  that’s all that they had to do… you made a mistake = you make it right.  i expressed to him our sincere appreciation for stepping up and correcting the problem.  of course, they are lucky that hubby’s diligence got us back on the cruise because i don’t think there would have been any making it right if we had lost our vacation altogether.  in any case, i just wanted to tell the rest of the story and let you all know that it was rectified.  when we got home and i finally checked the mail several days later, i found a check as well as a box of gourmet brownies with a card of apology.  i will not be providing any negative reviews of this agency.

so two and a half weeks ago, we decided that a vacation was in order in celebration of our anniversary and hubby’s 70.3 completion.  i was super excited when i found a good deal on a cruise leaving out of the nearest port and going to new-to-us destinations.  i booked the cruise through a travel agency and have been bubbling over with excitement ever since.  yeh, we’ve cruised before but it’s been a while and i truly missed not doing one last year.  i was so looking forward to being unplugged and getting away from the stresses of work and having some quality time with my husband after so many months of training separation.  we need it, we really do. 

the day that i booked the cruise, i received my invoice from the travel agent and a cabin confirmation from the cruise line and then i didn’t think any more of it because, as far as i was concerned, it was all set and we had a lot going on still.  last week, i finally had the time to look into why i wasn’t having any luck getting into my booking on the cruise line’s website.  i emailed their support and they responded the next day saying that they couldn’t work with me because i booked through a travel agent.  i found this ludicrous since i had a confirmation from them and have done this before.  once i get that confirmation, i should be able to go to the cruise line’s website and get into my booking to check in, print docs, book excursions, and get my boarding passes.  appalled at the email support, i tried calling their support center where i got the same answer.  ridiculous.  so, i called the travel agent but got his voice mail so i followed up with an email explaining the situation and asking for some assistance.  he called me back a couple hours later but it was while we were out on the bridge running and by the time i got the message, it was too late to call him again.  i didn’t get to get back to him friday either because we were running around like crazy trying to get hubby ready for his half iron race and, frankly, i wasn’t that concerned because i figured it was just a typo in my name or DOB or reservation number or something like that and the agent would fix it and all would be fine. 

now that the race is over, i had every intention of getting it all settled today so that  i could commence my vacation shopping and preparations without stress.  i called my agent this morning and he called the cruise line to get it straightened out for me.  by the time i went to lunch, i still hadn’t heard back from him but i figured i’d follow up on it after lunch if i still hadn’t gotten anything.  while i was at lunch, i missed a call from another person at the agency, which i took to be a not good sign.  i called him back when i returned from lunch but got his voice mail.  he called back just a short while later and he had my agent on the phone as well… not good when they’re teaming up to call you.  he explained that he was my agent’s boss and that the two of them have been working exclusively on my situation since i first called this morning.  apparently, somehow or other, the cruise line never received my payment that agency says they sent and so they cancelled my cruise.  to make matters more frustrating, the cruise is now full so they can’t make me a new reservation.  this is the part where my eyes start welling up as the two of them try in earnest to explain how hard they’ve worked on this and that my only real option now was to sail another date.  it took everything i had to stay friendly (i work in support, i don’t like when people go off on me for something that’s not my fault and at this point, i honestly don’t know where the fault lies) as i tell them that my vacation time has been approved for next week, not another week and my anniversary isn’t another weekend.  i told them that i would have to discuss it with my husband and got off the phone as quickly as possible because the tears were coming. 

mistakes happen, i understand that, but nobody offered to make things right.  if you’re going to suggest other cruises, what are you going to do to make up for the price difference and the flight (expensive last minute airfare) to get there?  and mostly i’m just heartbroken.  i was ebullient about this trip and, just like that, it’s gone.  i already sent my boss an email saying that i’ll be working next week after all and i really just want to eat a bag of cheetos and cry some more to indulge my extreme disappointment.  hubby, being the much more diplomatic and less emotional one, has been trying his best to sort it all out but it doesn’t look like anyone is going to step up to claim responsibility and make it right.  my eyes keep welling up.

hubby stood up a few minutes ago, looked out the window, and yelled MANATEE!  quickly, i grabbed the camera and followed him outside.  it’s only the third we’ve seen here so it’s very exciting 😀  i know the pix aren’t great but considering we’re on the 23rd floor and the surf is up today so focus was shifting a lot… i’m pretty pleased. 

distinctive shape in the water

taking a breather

going back down

a little tail

my prayers for a tapeworm have finally been answered!  that’s the only explanation i can come up with for why i’m suddenly seeing weight loss after all of these years of increasing activity and decreasing junk food and just getting fatter and fatter.  truly, it makes no sense.  last year, i trained for and ran my first half marathon and then hiked the grand canyon (which burned way more calories).  you would think that huge spike in activity, paired with better eating habits would have made me all kinds of svelte.  after four months of expending large quantities of energy… i hadn’t lost a single ounce.  and since weight can be deceptive, i’ll also note that none of my clothes were any less snug.  on the contrary, i went up a size 🙁  very frustrating and demoralizing, that was.  this year, i’m down 8+ pounds since jan 1.  i’m getting very close to seeing the next lower tens digit on the scale.  and i just don’t understand it.  nothing has changed.  my eating habits are the same as they’ve been for the last few years… overall, i eat fairly healthy but i’m more a believer in “everything in moderation” so i don’t deny myself less healthy foods.  my training for this year’s half was similar to last year’s except i did try to keep up better with cross-training.  my overall activity has greatly diminished since about two weeks prior to the 13.1 because of injuries that don’t seem to want to go away and yet the pounds keep going down.  my mind is officially boggled.  not to look a gift-horse in the mouth… seeing encouragement on the scale is nice but i’d rather have baggy clothes.

i’m down five pounds (+/-) since january 1.  it seems like i should be excited about that but, for the life of me, i can’t see where those pounds disappeared from (i so don’t believe in that whole ending with a preposition rule even though i am keenly aware every time i do it).  i certainly don’t look any more svelte.  and, the truest test of weight loss proves no progress…  i still can’t fit into any of my not-brand-new, non-elastic clothes.  what’s the point of losing five pounds if it doesn’t seem to make a difference?  *sigh*  hopefully, the trend will continue and noticeable results will be forthcoming.

and while ranting about my body… what the heck is with all of the adolescent-style breakouts?!??

as is the norm in march, my thoughts lately have been turning to ron.    we’re coming up on five years since he’s passed.  i’ve still never figured out why i think of him so much but i do.  this morning started out with an email informing us that another coworker, s.p., passed away yesterday.  he was an orlando employee and i only met him a few times.  the thing is, the first time i met him was also the first time i met ron.  it was probably a decade ago, when hubby and i were still in orlando, and ron and s.p. were passing through on a business trip and wanted to get together with hubby for dinner.  i met them together and they were quite the pair, hilariously feeding off each other.  the last time i saw s.p. was at ron’s funeral.  we actually tried to see him when we were in the office back in november but nobody knew where to find him in the great sea of cubes.  it sounds kind of bad but this has just increased my sadness over ron this year.

i completed my second half marathon sunday.  if you’ve read the last few posts, you know i was very concerned about it because my body decided to rebel against me for my last two weeks of training.  add to that the fact that saturday night was thunderstorms and crazy winds.  i was anxious sunday morning.  happily, everything came together to make for a great race day.  i got a decent-for-me night’s sleep, going to sleep about 2100 and waking at 0300, then dozing on/off until the alarm went off at 0500.  the rain cleared out while we were driving over there.  it was cool and windy waiting for the start but there were really only a few short stretches where the wind was truly sucky.  the temperature stayed nice and cool and it was cloudy the whole time so i didn’t have the sun beating down on me, burning me up.  i was aware of my vengeful knee and hip but they weren’t debilitating like they were for my twelve mile training run a couple weeks ago. 

so we got there and found several friends and got in the corral with them even though they were way further up than i should have been pace-wise.  the gun went off and we waited patiently to cross the start line. within seconds, of course, they were gone.  i started my race with laughter because my ipod, with 12.5 hours worth of tunes set to shuffle, chose to start me off with “this one’s gonna hurt” and i just found the irony darned amusing.   i started out faster than i should have but with the crowd pushing around me and my maniacal laughter, that’s to be expected.  i was at a 12′ pace the first half mile and purposely slowed myself down to 13′ by the one mile marker.  by then, the crowds were gone and it was just us slow-pokes.  i think i was at mile 3.8 when the first place guy passed heading the other way (we heard he had just finished when i was around 5.7).  that’s the one really nice thing about an out-and-back course… i love getting to see the crowd going the other way and cheer for them.  sometimes they even cheer back.  i was around 4.5 miles when we started seeing some friends in their final stretch, which is a lot of fun.  truth be told, we have two friends who have just starting running in the last few months and this was their first half… i was secretly hoping to beat them and was disappointed that they passed me so early in the race.  i finally saw them again around mile six which meant they were about a mile ahead of me.  when i got to the turnaround, i hubby commented about how they weren’t that far ahead of me and i expressed my doubts of catching them.  around 7.5, i found them and jogged along with them for a few minutes before giving them some encouragement and moving on.  inside, i was quite pleased.  i knew i hadn’t pulled too far ahead of them because at mile 10 or so, one of them pulled up next to me and we chatted a bit.  honestly, he’s quite a bit faster than me but he was being a good spouse and helping his hubby push through it.  i can totally respect that.  that last couple miles, i felt myself dragging a bit but i truly hit a wall.  i managed to pick it up for the last half mile and even managed a decent sprint for that last .1.  i crossed the finish line with a smile on my face and arms wide open.  it was a very different experience from last year.  a friend from ‘bama who just happened to be vacationing in that town last week was at the finish line and gave me a big hug and congratulations.  a couple minutes later, our friends completed their first half and there were many hugs and congratulations. 

i finished eleven minutes faster than last year and felt better, physically and mentally, about it.  so me being me, i figured i’d do an analytical comparison:

last year, 112 people finished after me, 3 in my age/group.  this year, 180 people finished after me, 22 in my age/group.  while that looks like a vast improvement, i had to take into consideration the fact that there were a lot more finishers this year so i did percentages to track my progress.  i improved by 2.68% overall and 7.03% in my age group – although that’s not really a fair comparison either since i’ve moved into a new age group but i don’t have any good way to normalize that.  i find it interesting that i only passed one person on the 2nd split last year but this year i passed 61 people that second half.  although, since my negative split was actually smaller this year, i can’t really count that as my accomplishment… it just means there were more people improperly trained who fell apart after the turnaround.  all in all, no matter what, i am thrilled with my progress.  i’m especially thrilled with how much stronger of a runner i am.  despite the knee/hip injuries, i am really so much stronger than i was a year ago.  i made it through most of my training without motrin, i have had no shin splints at all, and i’m faster and less tired.  that’s awesome!

warming up my poor boy before the race

i definitely looked more like a runner this year

had a lot more energy too. i looked totally beat before i had even gotten to the turnaround last year but this year i was still having fun and going strong around mile 10 in this pic.

of course, some things don't change at all.

this year i finished with victory arms but hubby didn't catch them in this pic.

my husband totally rocks for running with me and helping me through it. especially since he was already starting to come down with the flu.

time, bling, and purse (strap)

and because i was so much more awesome this year, even the bling was bigger!

i’m feeling so despondent about my half marathon coming up in six days.  for six+ weeks, my training was going awesome and i was truly feeling GREAT about my running.  i just KNEW that i was going to kick that ½’s butt!  after two weeks of knee and hip pain, and only managing to put in a whopping four miles total last week, and another not good feeling three miles today… i think all of my hopes for this 13.1 are gone.  in fact, i have grave concerns about even being able to match last year’s time.  i’m trying to look at the silver lining and resign myself to the fact that i can still go out there and have fun with all our peeps and cross the finish line when i can but i can’t get over the disappointment in my heart after all of the hard work i’ve put in and how fabulous i was feeling about it just a short time ago.

i have done such a fantastic job with all of my training.  overall, i have stuck to the schedule and i’ve felt great about it.  so i find it wholly disheartening that now, on my biggest run week, right before the glorious taper, i am having pains.  🙁  for some reason that i truly do not understand, the *back* of my left knee has been bothersome since the beginning.  not really a “hurt” or “pain” but a chronic annoyance.  how the heck do you aggravate the back of your knee while running?!  anyhow, this week the annoyance has turned to ouch.  which doesn’t make any sense because last week was a light week and i took it easy and didn’t push.  also on my left, the “knuckle” on my middle toe is swollen to twice its size and hurts to walk on.  i have no idea why.  i’m pretty sure i have not injured it recently.  it is the toe that i broke before our grand canyon trip last year so i don’t know if 6 weeks of ground-pounding has just inflamed that old injury or what.  it sucks.  lastly, out of the blue, there is a spot in the front size of my right hip that is making itself known when i walk.  see, this is why i didn’t want to turn thirty.  all my training was going great but have a birthday and i start falling apart.  i had to do my monday four miles on the treadmill thanks to the strawberry festival fences not being dismantled in a timely manner at my park and it was a pain-filled four miles.  honestly, i would have quit after 1/2 a mile if i had been in there alone.  since there were two guys in the gym, i hated to look like a wimp by leaving after a whopping 5 or 6 minutes on the treadmill.  tonight i have to run six and i am really hoping that all of these aches and pains either let up or work their way out during the run.