Manic Monday

I've been taking Tamoxifen for a little over a year now, without much trouble.  The only side effect I've noticed is night sweats.  I sleep in summer pajamas most of the time, lightweight capri bottoms and a tank top.  Walker comes home most mornings to find me sound asleep under the ceiling fan, covers kicked off.  He sleeps in flannel pants, a turtleneck, and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up.

So when I got out of bed and rummaged through the closet for a sweatshirt, that should have been a red flag.  We both overslept on Monday.  When I finally woke up I had to dash for the shower.  Walker got up to make me something to eat before I had to leave for work, and he's the one who figured out that the furnace was out. The house was a brisk 55 degrees. 

Of course Walker, who knows nothing about the furnace, decides to take a look at it.  I'm still in the shower when I hear him banging away in the basement.  Our furnace is supposed to have two clips that hold the cover in place.  Without the cover on properly and the clip in place, the furnace won't run.  One of the clips broke long ago, and none of the heating places I called could get me another one.  They say those clips aren't made anymore.  We have to treat the remaining clip like it's made of glass.  We break it, we'll be putting in a new furnace.  Up in the shower, listening to the banging, I freaked out.

I didn't know I could still move that fast, but I was out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, and down the stairs in a blur.  I keep a paint can key next to the furnace to remove the cover clip when I change the filters, and I used that to adjust the clip.  A quarter turn and the furnace roared to life.  Crisis averted. I went back upstairs, finished my shower, ate a quick dinner, and got to work just in time.  Unfortunately, my coworker was out sick and the only person to cover for her was me.  Sigh.

On the plus side, I know I'm not supposed to weigh every day but I stepped on the scale before I hopped in the shower and I'm down half a pound since the day before.  Looks like my theory about the sodium in my Subway turkey sandwich might have been correct. 

Weekly Spark

I'm choosing to be a glass-half-full kind of person today.  With that in mind - Wahoo! - I didn't gain any weight this week.  The scale read exactly the same as last week.  I was a little disappointed, because I did pretty well with the calorie tracking, but I know weight loss isn't necessarily an exact science.  Yesterday, we stopped at Subway for dinner, and while I had a turkey sandwich with no cheese and lots of veggies, I know that deli meat has lots of sodium.  Sometimes that's enough to cause a little water retention.  Or, you know, my metabolism may just be on strike.  Regardless, I'm slogging on.  If things don't pick up this week I'll think about making some changes.

We had a pretty good weekend.  We went to a birthday party for our neighbor and friend, the lovely Miss Lucille, who is eighty-five years young this week.  To pacify the blister on the bottom of my foot I wore extra thick socks and my new Hello Kitty Vans.  Okay, the Vans didn't help my blister but hey, they looked cute:

My mom has caught a bad cold, so Diva and I brought her some Campbell's Double Noodle along with the cutest brownies ever:

She promptly ate the ears off, which brought back memories of pretty much every chocolate Easter bunny I received as a child.  To this day my mom can't resist a chocolate ear.

My Diva got herself into some hot water a while back.  What she did was pretty typical ten-year-old behavior, but when her Gramma called her on the carpet, she lied.  Then I asked her about it, and she lied to me, too. Well, that's not going to fly.  It didn't take me too long to get her to confess, but I couldn't let the lying go so she was punished with ten chores: five for lying to me, and five for lying to Gramma.  Sunday morning I handed her my weekly cleaning list and retired to the sofa.  Walker changed the sheets and did the dishes, while Diva vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned both bathrooms.  She also folded three baskets of laundry.  All I had left to do was to mop the kitchen floor and water my plants.  Wahoo!  It's almost like being on vacation.  Diva does very good work for a ten-year-old.  I'd like to hire her.  It was fabulous having two extra hours to myself.

Injured Reserve

Tuesday afternoon I was chugging away on my elliptical when I started having stabbing pains in my left hip.  I don't think I did anything weird, but after a couple minutes the pains started getting worse so I slowed down until I finished my planned 20 minutes on the machine.  It quit hurting a few minutes later, but my leg was stiff whenever I got up from my desk that night at work, so I decided to stay off the elliptical for a couple days and just do my nightly walks outside.

Walking outside is a nice break in my workday, but on Friday I wore the wrong shoes, choosing my old favorite dress shoes because I couldn't remember why I stopped wearing them.  I remembered about halfway through my walk: they have little zippers on the side of each foot, and the right one won't stay up.  This makes the shoe too loose, my foot slides around a lot, and by the time I finished walking my loop I had a quarter sized blister on the bottom of my foot.  Yep, the bottom.  No getting around that. I get a reminder every time I take a step.

Then on Saturday, Walker, Diva, and I went grocery shopping.  I was digging around in my purse looking for the shopping list on the way into the store, but I should have been paying attention because one of the trucks in the parking lot had a big tow bar sticking out from it's backside and I walked smack into it.  Hard.  I hit the dang thing just under the knee on my right leg.  I was rewarded with a ginormous bruise in a really pretty shade of purple.

I think I'll just read a book today.  
 

Writer's Block

I wish I had some fun stories to share with y'all, but I don't.  It's been a whole lot of work and not much else around here.  Doesn't make for many interesting posts.

The truth is, I feel like my life is on hold, like I'm just marking time til Spring.  We have lots of stuff on the calendar, just not for a while.  We didn't even get to go to the winter carnival this year; there was no winter and no snow, so the carnival activities were cancelled.  Can't have a snow sculpture contest when it's 45* outside. The annual festivities at the ski hill ain't gonna happen, either.  I guess the price you pay for lovely mild weather is all your "normal" entertainment goes away.

Weekly Spark

The bottom line this week is the loss of one full pound.  I'm good with that.  I did toy with the idea of stepping up the exercise and trying to cut the calories a little more, but decided to just keep doing what I'm doing.  The weight loss is slow, but it's steady, and right now the routines are manageable.  I lost a pound, even though Walker requested lasagna for Valentines Day and we ate it for leftovers twice more last week.  And he gave me chocolate.  And I did not make time to do my Zumba at all.  I did get some walking in, four out of five nights during my dinner break at work.  I kept my calories within the recommended range at Spark People.  I drank water.  When I went to work without remembering to pack a lunch, I dug into the stash of oatmeal and Medifast bars I keep in my desk instead of running to one of the half dozen fast food places in a three block radius of my office.  I did okay this week, and I'm not going to mess with success.

On Saturday I went down into the laundry room, where every pair of Capri pants in my possession was hanging on a clothing rack in order of size.  Real size, determined by a tape measure, regardless of what the tags said.  I tried them on, starting with the biggest.  The first two pair are definitely too big.  The third pair fit, a little loose.  The next three pair are a perfect fit.  The next three went on but were tight, and the last two?  Well, I won't be wearing them any time soon.  Even so, I should be able to cobble together a vacation wardrobe with what I already own, whether I stay the same size or keep shrinking.  I'm looking forward to getting to the small end of the rack, to getting rid of the too-big clothes, and to finally having some spare closet space.  Good goals, all.

This week my focus is on making sure the exercise gets done.  I enjoy it, it helps me, and honestly?  Even when we're crazy busy I'm sure there are thirty minutes a day I can spare, somewhere.  My job is to find that time and utilize it.  Spark People recommends exercising four days a week.  I'm going to do five this week, just to prove I can.

My Week in Review

I've missed y'all!  Not sure how things got so far off track, but I think we're all caught up now.  The highlights from my lost week:

Walker and I celebrated Valentine's Day at home, with a lasagna dinner, some candles, and mushy greeting cards.  It was fabulous.  He brought me some flowers and a heart shaped tin filled with Ghiradelli chocolate and caramel squares, perfect for sharing. 

Wandered through Walmart and found one of my favorite movies.  In the five dollar bin, y'all!  Snapped that up and watched it one morning when I couldn't sleep.  This movie always makes me cry, but I love it. 

 

Babysat these adorable little girls, my puppy nieces.  We used to take care of them all the time but had to cut back when Ernie got sick.  I've missed their fuzzy little faces.   Judging from all the dancing they did when they got here, they missed us, too.

The rest of the week we worked, worked, and worked some more.  We had yet another water leak, which has been repaired and cleaned up.  I did my taxes, and while I'm happy to report that for the first time in many years I had no medical deductions, the downside to that is that I have to pay in.  I was hoping to break even, but no such luck.  So I'll be keeping my second job for a while longer.   At least I have options, right? 

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I hope you all have a day filled with love and hugs and those yummy nuggets of chocolate that come in the red foil heart boxes.  My friend Cheri says, " I know a lot of people think it's a silly holiday HOWEVER, I love it. Any reminder to tell someone that you care about them can only be good right?"  I could not agree more, my friends.  Hugs to you all, and Happy Valentine's Day!!