Eager Beaver

Yesterday morning, I ran that C25K W1D1.

Today, I can barely move.

My hip HURTS. The pain is wrapping around to my back! I can't believe I'm still not ready to run. I guess I'll help keep my gym in business a little longer...I did find out, though, that they give a discount to those who have my insurance, so one of these days I'll get in there when it's staffed and get my discount! I love me a good discount.

Yesterday evening was quite eventful. After we had finished dinner, and H mowed the yard, we settled down to watch Hell's Kitchen. We knew some storms were coming and were delighted at the prospect of rain and temporary cooler temperatures. We noticed it getting a little darker, the weatherman bumped into the show to talk about a storm an hour away but said nothing about our area.

Then the power went out.

Then whatever deity you worship or Mother Nature unleashed their fury on our side of town. Holy shitballs was all I could say. It never bodes well when the power goes out BEFORE the storm hits you. It leaves you wondering, what in the hell is coming here?

We immediately went outside, being the proper Okies that we are. The gust front came through, and hard, and then the rain came. It was coming down in sheets off the house because the gutters were full. I rescued my pots before the wind could knock down my poor struggling plants. Then it got calmer. We thought it was over.

No, it wasn't over.

What we saw was violent. H came running inside (I had already stepped inside the door) and we watched from the glass door as the wind whipped around from nothing to the east, our neighbor's flagpole swaying dangerously around and around. You couldn't see across the street. The rain came in buckets and it swirled and swirled. I asked H if he thought this is what a tornado looked like.

I expected to see Al Roker in my yard, reporting about the hurricane we were having in Oklahoma.

The power was out for a couple of hours. We went out and got treats at Sonic. I forgot that they use "real ice cream" now and had to throw away half my sundae, as it was just too much for me! My stomach was imitating the swirling storm after a few minutes. We also found out that a little shopping center just north of our neighborhood experienced damage. The two occupied stores on the outside were okay...the middle store that was just about to open, well, the entire storefront collapsed somehow! It looked like stucco, so that was nuts. As it turns out, the store that was about to open was a new liquor store.

Within walking distance.

I can't decide if I should be sad or not that it is now delayed in opening. On the one hand, wine within walking distance...on the other, WINE WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE!

Today was much calmer. I got a bunch of copies made at school, ate leftovers, and came home and took a nap.

Oh! I weighed myself on Friday and those four pounds were gone again. I've been good and have stayed away from the scale. I feel pretty good, albeit a bit tired today but I didn't exactly have a fitful sleep last night, and my body is obviously trying to heal from yesterday's run and the damage it caused. I hope to see the scale move down and down as school starts. I am much better about following meal plans and eating healthy lunches when I'm working! This chick likes a schedule.

C25K W1D1

Does the title sound familiar?

I decided that I should try C25K again. My hip has been feeling strong after using the elliptical at the gym, and doing squats, lunges, etc. While it was killing me when I was in class, because of all the sitting and extra driving, since then it's been feeling pretty good!

It doesn't feel too good right now, though. I'm trying to stretch it but it's such a difficult area to get to with a stretch. It was feeling fine through most of the workout, until the last couple of run sections. Since you're only supposed to do C25K every other day, I can use tomorrow to lift and stretch to continue strengthening it. I am excited that I finished without any problems.

I also felt pretty pukey after, but it was over 80 and I've never run when it was that warm! When I first started this last year, it was probably 60 out in the mornings, and the temperatures dropped drastically fast as November rolled in. I forgot how cold it was last year.

My legs and butt started itching about halfway through, though. I'll have to remember to pop an antihistamine before next time. My allergies always flare in the morning so that might be part of the itching problem. It seemed to go away when I ignored it and noticed my hip was starting to hurt. I should just punch myself in the face to distract me from all the different things going on and pay attention to that instead!

This weekend was a BUST. Oh good lord, it was. Happy hour on Friday. Friends wanted to go out Friday night, so we went to the comedy club (quite fun!). Saturday was Debauchery/Gluttony day, so there was a bad lunch, a movie, and beer and pub food for dinner. Yesterday was a family lunch and H wasn't home for dinner so I ate out...again. Good lordy.

After all that gluttony on Saturday, I was really depressed yesterday. Yes, for once it was cloudy and rainy (hooray!) but that should have lifted my spirits, since it was a break from the insane heat. I was in a funk and it was hard to shake. Feeling better today.

I got all my grades back, and I got a B in my conducting seminar. I emailed my professor (no response yet) to ask why, trying not to sound like an arrogant knowitall, but because pretty much all of the feedback was really positive, so I'm not really sure where I went wrong. I had an error in my paper, that was only worth 30% of my grade, but that shouldn't have dropped me a whole letter grade! So, I'm trying to be patient and wait for an answer. It took me awhile to write the email, as I didn't want to sound like a petulant child demanding my A...but this is my only B in grad school, and it dropped me from a 4.0 to a 3.90. That's significant to me.

I also found out we're not getting step raises this year at my school because of all the budget cuts, so I'm glad I finished this program now so I can get some sort of raise, and I'll just cross fingers that H's health insurance will either stay the same or go down. His premium is off the charts.

So, back to the school today. Helping the choir/orchestra teacher get our rehearsal space back in order. Hopefully a few students will show up to help. It shouldn't take too long, and I still have other things to get in order in my other classroom, too. It takes some time prepping 5 or 6 different classes, especially classes as involved as mine. I do love it, though, and I miss it. I don't quite know what to do with myself when I have free time!

I'm done!

I turned everything in this morning. I'm done! Unless I'm the first person ever to not pass their comp exams for my program at the university, I'm done!

I'm celebrating Saturday night with chicken and beer. Day of Debauchery and Gluttony! Today, I'm just trying to remember how to enjoy free time, and it seems I have totally forgotten, even though it hasn't even been a full month since I started classes. It seems like ages ago that I was standing in my in-laws' kitchen, drinking beer with my BIL and watching those hilarious GI Joe psa parodies on Youtube on his phone. Who wants a body massage? Oooooooh.

Today we are getting sprinklers installed. Half my plants have been dug up to put sprinklers in the flower bed, which means I will hardly ever have to water (yay!) but I worry that in the heat, they won't bounce back. It's mostly just rose moss, but it was 102 by 11:30 this morning. 108 now. I worry that anything other than cactus will make it. Our shrubs are barely established, too. We'll see what happens. H is having them install an electric cable out to the sweet gum tree so we can put Christmas lights without having to run a cable. I've never thought of that. It seems brilliant to me! Now, if it were only December...

Poor Anchovy just doesn't understand why all these workers are in my yard and he isn't. He is a pathetic whiner when he doesn't get his way.

Since I can't seem to relax, I think I'm going to work on my journalism curriculum, since I had to abandon it when my classes started. I made it all the way through Unit 3. That's it. That's about a month's worth of materials. Back to work for me!

6,000 words later...

I'm still not done! 6,000 words! I thought this thing would be like, 15 pages. I'm on 23. Now, that's including 4 pages of works referenced, one for each question/essay I've written, but holy hell!

I actually ran into my adviser today, not surprisingly in the "M" section of the library, and discussed my timing with him. He said that there is not a real deadline on this, that it is somewhat self-paced, and after everything is turned back into him from my other teachers, and it's approved, he'll send me to the graduate college for my audit, and then after a couple of weeks, they should approve me.

Hopefully, the work I've done is satisfactory. I know the theory exam was good for a few laughs. Hopefully my adviser didn't feel that way about my history paper. He makes me a little nervous; he's too hard to read.

I don't know what happens if I don't "pass" my comp exams. Do I get to take them again? Do I not? Do they hunt me down with pitchforks and torches because I would be the first person ever to not pass? Who knows.

I have, at least, finished two of the four essays. I just finished up the works referenced pages for them. Well, almost. I just realized that I still need to figure out how to cite someone's Master's thesis that I read online through the university database. It's a little specific, you know? I hate citing stuff. I never can seem to get the form down.

Otherwise, I've had a hungry day, though it would appear that it has finally stopped. I was getting hungry every two hours. I ate a huge lunch of chicken, green beans, and a salad and I was hungry not that long after! I had some prosciutto and mozzarella, but it didn't taste very good to me, so I tossed about half of it and haven't been hungry since.

Yesterday, I was making my roasted chicken (that smelled so good) and at one point while putting the dinner together, I thought I was going to throw up and my appetite completely went away. I ate my dinner, but not very willingly, even though it tasted quite good. I think the stress was getting to me. I know it is today. My head keeps having sharp, shooting pains and I actually took a nap, something I almost never do.

I was good and didn't get the scale out of the closet. I'm not counting calories this week, either. I want to see how I do on my own eating healthy foods until I feel content.

And I'm still making chili. I don't care if it's 106 outside and the a/c won't stop running. It's depressing.