Foto Friday

I'm so behind.  I don't know where the last two weeks have gone but, obviously, no time has been devoted to this blog.  Get ready to be inundated with pictures...

Day #47 - Playing around with Grandpa.

 Day #48 - My brother-in-law is a real life farmer.  He took Anderson out on the combine.  I have to admit, I was jealous.

 Day #49 - National Ice Cream Day!!!

Day #50 - This was my Tonka truck when I was younger.  I remember it being much bigger.

 Day #51 - My parents, Anderson, and I went on a long bike ride around town.  We made it back just before the sun set.

 Day #52 - Anderson talks a lot about my tattoo, so I gave him one.  Like what it says?

Day #53 - How about a little #tbt?  He still had his baby fat and no teeth.

 Day #54 - I asked Anderson to smile and this is what I got.

Day #55 - The Home Depot.  Our second home.  Anderson looks so thrilled to be here again.

 Day #56 - This one is Anderson's "performance art."  Notice his feet on the drying rack?  He calls it "Bird in Tree."

 Day #57 - Lifeguard Anderson reporting for duty.

 Day #58 - My new t-shirt.  I mean, how cool is this?!

 Day #59 - I call this game Smooshie Face.  Anderson calls it Eat Mama's Face.

 Day #60 - Anderson loves to read.  I love that he loves to read.

Only 40 days left in this project and it's getting harder and harder.  I'm back into regular exercise (sort of) and started my job and we've been putting in a lot of hours in projects around the house.  Sometimes it's 10:00pm and I still haven't remembered to take a picture.  Must.Try.Harder!

Motivational Monday

"Never quit.  It is the easiest cop-out in the world.  Set a goal and don't quit until you attain it.  When you do attain it, set another goal and don't quit until you reach it.  Never quit."

- Bear Bryant

Week in Review

Remember the July Challenge when Dave and I vowed to work out every day?  Yeah, we suck.  At least I'm doing better than Dave on that front.  This week I was given the go-ahead to get on the "Return to Running" program.  Immediately I started on the elliptical and I've been doing some solid walking outside.  Here's the week in a snippet.

Swimming - 1500 yards
5 x 300 pull

Biking - Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I'm soooo over biking.

Walking/Elliptical - 6.42 miles
I was only allowed to start at 20 minutes on the elliptical and build up to 40 in the next two weeks.  I did one elliptical for 20 minutes, did one walk on the treadmill, and one longer walk outside with the stroller. 

Strength Training - 0.25 hours
I am using my conditioning cards and now I can do most of them because the hip is healed-ish.  This week's exercises included Russian twists, forward lunges, upright rows, reverse lunges, pushups with legs on stability ball, one-legged squats (I could only do one set on the injured leg.  They hurt a little too much.), bench press, pull ups, burpees, and skull crushers.  Boy, was I sore after this workout.

Next week I start physical therapy.  I also hope to really get these legs moving.

I Got Caught Cheating

No it's not what you think.

I mentioned a few days ago that without running I don't particularly have a lot of self confidence.  I've gained about 6 pounds without running and just feel really blah about myself right now. What does a woman do when she feels awful about herself?  Well, she cuts her hair.

A few weeks ago I got a haircut.  The goal was a long pixie, or a Lixie as I'm calling it.  Unfortunately, the cut was a little off and had a distinct "mom hair" look to it.  I suppose at 37 and a mom that's appropriate, but I want to be a cool mom.  So, it was time to go back to the pixie.  I like the pixie.  I just worry sometimes that I look like a boy.  I'm working on my wardrobe so maybe that will help.

Anyway, when I get the idea in my head to cut my hair, I want to do it and do it now.  Don't think about it or else you'll back out.  The chick that usually cuts my hair was unavailable until late next week.  No, NOW!!!  I made an appointment at the usual salon with a chick who had availability first thing this morning.

Wouldn't you know as soon as I walked in the salon the first person I saw was the chick who usually cuts my hair?  Busted!  I had a hard time explaining that one away.  I wasn't cheating on her!  Her availability wasn't what I needed/wanted.

The chick who cut my hair had the personality of a door knob but she did do a good job cutting my hair.  Although I love the haircut, next time I'll go back to my usual girl so I don't have a guilty conscious about just cutting my hair.

Foto Friday

The #100HappyDays journey continues...

Day #40 - Anderson's first movie in the theatre.  We took him to see "The Minion Movie".  He did alright for about half of it and then he got restless.  Luckily we were able to corral him between us and let him stand up to watch the rest of the movie.  

Day #41 - Stopping to smell the flowers.  Anderson is so funny around flowers.  He always sniffs them.  I wish I had a video.  It's so funny.  I also wish I could claim these were my flowers.  My flower bed looks like shit.  That's putting it mildly.  These are my parents' flowers.

 Day #42 - R2D2-ish?  Anderson has never seen Star Wars and he won't for years, but he does love R2D2 and other robots.  He even has a t-shirt.  Here he is posing with R2D2 at our local Mellow Mushroom (pizza restaurant).

Day #43 - This kid.  Here he is half in pajamas, half in regular clothes, watching educational YouTube videos on my iPad.  

 

Day #44 - My niece is showing rabbits at the local fair this year.  We thought Anderson would think it was cool.  Instead, he was quite nervous and scared around the bunny.

 

Day #45 - This just looks like a mess waiting to happen.  Dave and Anderson planting some flowers they got me for Mother's Day.

 

 Day #46 - Yesterday afternoon.  We had a playground all by ourselves.  It's so wonderful to watch him enjoying childhood.

July Hip Update

It's been 8-1/2 weeks since I last ran.  Today was my July appointment for my hip.  The doctor asked me about my activity level, gave me the stink eye when I mentioned I was doing some walking, and tested out my strength. And then he gave me the best news ever, I could return to running!!!

Sort of.

My doctor has a "Return to Running" plan that has 11 steps going from walking to elliptical to jogging to building intensity to returning full time to training.  Because I had already started walking I blew through steps 1 and 2.  Overachiever!  So, I'm now onto at least 2 weeks of elliptical training, building from 20 minutes to 40. 

In addition because I continue to have pain in my outer hip and my hamstring, I will be starting physical therapy next week to begin to strengthen all the muscles. 

I'm super psyched to get running again.  The extra 5 pounds I gained too are extra excited to start the training too.  It might be another 8-12 weeks getting back into real training but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.

Doing and Getting the Run Around

I have too much time on my hands without running.  And without running my self opinion goes down, down, down.  So it doesn't help that during this time we are redoing our closets.  I took one look at myself in the mirror and all my clothes I was removing from my closet and went, "yuck!"  Earlier this week I went to town on my wardrobe.  I put together two large laundry baskets of adult clothing and teenage clothing (I worked for Abercrombie for three years - I have lots of teen clothing).  Then on Tuesday I ran all over town to different consignment shops to try to resale my clothes.  I had to drop them off to be evaluated and quoted.  Then they would send me a text so I could go get my money/leftover clothes.

This whole time I was dragging my son around with me.  It was hot and we weren't exactly having fun.

First I got a text from the teenage shop.  They gave me $19 for some of my clothing and then gave me a bunch back.

Then I went back to the adult clothing store.  They gave me NOTHING and returned all of my clothing.  They told me they didn't sell many of my labels (snobs) and that my clothing was too old and out of style.

I'm sorry but when does a suit, a tailored jacket, and a jean skirt go out of style?

I was pissed.  And what do I do when I get pissed?  I turn to Facebook.  I started posting my clothes on different Facebook selling pages.  You know what?  I had hits immediately.  I started meeting people and selling my clothes and making better money than I was at the resale stores.  And I didn't have to host a garage sale.

Now I'm going through the rest of the house and getting read of my excess.  I'm so sick of all my stuff.  It's just sitting around, collecting dust, and has not or will not get used.  Time to clean out, the modern-garage-sale way.

Week in Review

Because of my busy week saving lives and the exhaustion that comes with it, working out fell to the wayside this week.  Plus my hip was incredibly sore after so much kicking in the pool.  I didn't do much - one swim, one bike, one weight lifting session, and two walks on the treadmill.  And all of that was finished by Wednesday.  Thursday through the rest of the weekend, well, I was just too tired.  I'll try again next week. 

Swim - 300 yards
Yep 300 yards.  That was the swimming portion of the lifeguarding test.  I wonder how much I actually swam the rest of the weekend with the abundance of rescues we had to do?

Bike - 5.29 miles
I did one bike on Tuesday evening.  It was only a half hour on the trainer.  I'm sick of biking.  I don't like biking.  When I get the all clear to go back to running, I think running is going to be my primary focus.

Strength training - 0.25 hours
Toe raises, dips with feet on the stability ball, dirty 30s (bicep curls, shoulder/flys, tricep kickbacks), side planks, reverse crunches, chin-ups, back extensions, horizontal rows, pushup rows, and skull crushers.

Walking - 3.5 miles
Most days we were given an hour for lunch.  I would eat my lunch quickly, by myself, and then hit the treadmill for a slow walk.  Yes, I have not technically been cleared to walk for exercise, but I'm also going 20 minute/miles.  That's what I would do if I were taking the dog for a walk.  I'm assuming it's alright.

It's now been eight weeks since I last ran.  I'm starting to get itchy.  I need to run.  I want to run.  Thursday I have my doctor's appointment.  I don't have my hopes set very high for running, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.

Lifeguard Certification

This past week I took steps toward securing a new job by getting my lifeguard certification.  I'm not going to lie, I kind of felt like a tool doing this.  I just kinda figured that lifeguards were 16 year old babes who just wanted to work on their tan and flirt with the boys.  Y'all, I was so wrong!!!  This was one of the hardest physical weeks I've experienced in a long time.  I was soooo exhausted by the end of the week. 

The week started off with per-requisite testing.  It consisted of a 300 yard continuous swim, retrieving a brick off the bottom of the deep end and swimming on your back with it for 25 yards (timed), and a two minute hands-free tread.  Surprisingly, we actually weeded out a few in the class who were unable to perform these tasks.

Then we started on the classroom portion of the class.  We learned about rules and scanning the pool and we watch real videos of people drowning and needing some resuscitation and some dying.  It was awful!   Some other land stuff we did was CPR, AED, rescue breathing, first aid, choking, etc.  The pool stuff was really difficult.  We learned how to properly jump or slide into the pool.  We learned all the rescues from simple stuff like handing the tube out to the person so they could get back to the wall or just getting in and lifting a person until they can touch, to really complicated stuff like passive underwater spinal rescues that involved deep water backboarding.  On Thursday we spent 3-1/2 hours straight in the pool doing rescues.  I slept like a boss that night!

Thursday afternoon we took the written tests.  The first one was CPR/AED.  It was 40 questions, multiple choice.  I missed two and passed.  Then was our lifeguarding written test.  I had wanted to study for it and take it on Friday, but the reality was there was no way I was going to have time to study.  So I took it and didn't miss any.  And then got made fun of by the instructor for wanting to study for it.  Yep.  I deserved that.

Friday was our in-water test.  We did three tests, each getting progressively harder.  One was a simple deep water rescue.  The second was a shallow spinal rescue.  And the third was a deep water passive rescue that included using the backboard and then doing the CPR/rescue breathing techniques. 

And....I passed!  I am now a certified lifeguard!

Plus, the instructors like what they saw and said I could get a job at the Y.  So I'm currently in the process of going through the application and orientation and then hopefully I can start working.  I'm not going to lie, there are parts that make me very nervous about being a lifeguard.  For example, I know that they audit you in the first week which means you perform a real (acted out) rescue in the water while the pool is open.  If you screw up, you could lose your job!  And the thought of doing a real rescue and possibly losing someone scares the crap out of me.  It's not likely, but it could always happen.  It will be good for me, though, to get back to working.  This is not going to interfere with me raising my child.  I am going to be working in the evenings and/or the weekends.  It will be good for me to get out of the house and have adult interaction.  It will be nice making some money again.  It will sure go a long way towards renovations in our house or just buying all the toys I want (hello standup paddleboard!!!).

It was a great week.  I made some new friends and learned lots of new skills.  I'm excited for the challenge ahead!

Foto Friday

And I'm back!!!  It's been a great and exhausting week of lifeguard training.  I'll talk about that tomorrow.  Let's get to the continued saga of #100happydays of photos.

Day #33 - Anderson playing at the playground while we were camping.  We only camped one night with the family during the Fourth of July holiday and actually slept on the couch in my parents' trailer.  We had too much to do to spend the whole weekend camping and boy did we get a lot done.

 Day #34 - Happy Independence Day!!

Day #35 - Yep, we got a lot done on our house over the holiday weekend.  We put the mirrors up in the bathroom along with some more finishing touches like towel rings and picture ledges.

#Day 36 - Don't worry.  These weren't plugged into anything.

Day #37 - These two.  (This was not staged.  I got lucky and caught Anderson hugging Sloopy.)

Day #38 - A video!  He's so funny.

Day #39 - Swim lessons.  This was at the very start of class, before he started screaming because he didn't want to follow any rules.

I can't believe I've kept up with this this long.  I'm on a role.  See ya next week!

Happy Independence Day

Foto Friday

A whole month down plus a little more and I'm still keeping up with the 100 Happy Days Challenge!  It's getting a little harder as I kinda feel like I'm taking the same pictures over and over.  But it's fun and I'm getting lots of pictures of my little guy as he's growing and changing nearly before my eyes.

Day 26 - Yes, this seems like a dumb picture to be happy about, but hear me out.  We started out bathroom remodel 7 months ago and finally it's starting to come together.  Our counters and sinks were installed last week.

Day 27 - The very next day Dave installed the faucets and they work!!!

Day 28 - In addition to fixing up the bathroom, I've been working on our landscaping like a boss.  We have cut down two trees and weeded until I've been covered in dirt.  I've also made some snake friends in the process.

Day 29 - Peek-a-boo!!!

Day 30 - Yogurt beard.

Day 31 - Watching the trains at Easton (local mall).  This is beginning to be a weekly occurrence.

Day 32 - He's at it again - falling asleep with his book on his chest.

I'm Getting a Job

I feel like I have been living at the Y this year.  I've done a TON of swimming (seriously, 58-1/2 miles already).  I have become quite comfortable taking Anderson to child care.  They know him, they know me.  I really feel at home at the Y. 

A few weeks ago, our swim lessons were moved to the big pool because there weren't enough life guards.  Surprisingly, our Y is short of life guards this summer.  Several of the guards talked to me about taking the certification and getting on staff.  They know I can swim and they know I'm there all the time anyway.  So I got in touch with the swim director and he talked me into it.  I hemmed and hawed for a week until he asked me if I would do it.  Then I got a babysitter for Anderson next week so I could take the certification class. 

And here I am.  The prerequisites are a short swim, a 2:00 tread without hands, and a brick dive and retrieve.  If you pass those then you continue on with the training and CPR and whatnot.  In addition to getting a job, I also will get my membership for free and a discount on classes.  Plus if any of my hours need childcare I can do that at no additional charge.  Although I'm not thrilled that I will probably be working evenings and weekends, I'm going back to work and making a little money and basically doing what I do every day anyway.

Wish me luck!!!

June Totals

Wow!  June went fast!  It was a jam-packed month filled with some working out, much loving on my boy, and lots and lots of work around the house.  Oh, and I took a picture every day and blogged every day (except for last Wednesday - darn it!).

Swimming - 15,700 yards ~ 8.9 miles
Really, I should have swam a lot more than this considering it was the only exercise I could do for the majority of the month.  I had a hard time motivation myself, though, to go to the Y and just pull in the water.  By the end of the month I was doing a little kicking, but generally these workouts are slow and short.

Biking - 28.92 miles
I got the green light to ride my bike in the middle of the month.  I have done some spinning, although keeping it light and all inside on the trainer.  The most I've done is 40 minutes.  I'm hoping to build back up to an hour soon.

Walking - 2 miles
I have yet to be cleared for aerobic walking, but I have done a little, keeping it nice and light and SLOW on the treadmill.  Seriously, 20 minute miles.  I want to walk more, but I'll keep it super slow and easy until the doctor officially gives me the okay.

Strength
I don't have any official numbers to report, but I have been doing some strength.  I've mostly kept to seated weight lifting and core, although I have done very light weights standing up.  No lunges or squats just yet.

YMCA
I feel like I've been in the YMCA one billion times in the last 7 weeks (more on this tomorrow), although it was really only 20 visits between the three of us in June.  That's a cost per visit of $4.27.

My next doctor's appointment is in the middle of July so hopefully the swimbikerunwalkstrength numbers will only continue to grow as the summer goes on.