Oooh, Pretty!!!

It's no surprise that I am a stereotypical woman - I loves shoes. It's genetic (you should see my mom's closet!). But I don't have as many shoes as I used to thanks never having a desk job and pregnancy. Wow, I never know feet could change that much! Being on a tight-ish budget, shoes are on an "as-needed" basis. So, when Karl says "You need better cycling shoes" I am certainly not going to argue. New shoes are new shoes, no matter what the purpose. I was just as excited when I got my new Wellies as when I found the perfect pair of 40's style heels to wear for the Hangar Dance.

Shoe shopping with a man is not fun. There's a lot of sighing and grumpy looks. But not this time! On Saturday, we made our annual trip to Bike-O-Rama: the spring clearance sale put on by a couple of local bike shops. There are always great deals, and if you don't buy anything else, you buy inner tubes and a new pair of socks. Karl made a bee-line to the women's shoes, and we made our way past the aisle-blocking strollers, and pulled out a couple of pairs to try.

They had a ton of these. So cute, and they

match my bike - I even have flowers on my

seat! Sidi shoes are really nice, and really

expensive! These were on sale for $189. A

great deal, but a little steep for us right now.

So, in the end, I got some pretty white shoes with blue and silver which, incidentally, matches my bike. The obligatory socks are self-explanatory. Now, if it would just warm up enough to wear them outside.

On Sunday, Karl actually passed on a ride with the local group so he could ride with me - outside. It was a gorgeous day, maybe 40 degrees, but nice and sunny with no wind. And I actually have the proper gear to wear in that weather (thank goodness for my mountain bike shoes, even if they are too narrow). We headed out towards the lake, and Karl was nice enough to turn towards home just before it got too hilly. We did about 13 miles in just over an hour. It was the first time Karl and I have ridden together in a LONG time., and definitely not the last. Hopefully, I'll be fit enough for him not to drop me when we ride the Stars and Stripes ride in May.

Look out.

Excuse me while I have a bit of a venting session. I'm all by myself, so there's no one to listen.

Last night, about every 20 minutes between the hours of 8:30 and 10, the kid came in to tell me she couldn't fall asleep. This has become the norm at our house. Normally, I'm fast asleep by 9:15pm. So, of course, after the third session, I was getting frustrated and crabby.

Early this morning, right before I was rudely awakened by a 10 year old's elbow in the middle of my back, I had an awful dream: my kid wouldn't listen to me, I was yelling and crying, I had gotten a horrible haircut, and we were late for somewhere.

Needless to say, I woke up in a grumpy mood.

Then, while getting the aforementioned kid ready for school, I discover she has not done all of her homework. She is the QUEEN of procrastination, and was too "busy with her iPod" to do that second page of spelling. I even reminded both her and dad that it needed to be done (as I was walking out the door). That man is not to be trusted. Grrrr

Time to leave for the bus! Kid's boots are soaking wet from playing outside yesterday. She'll have to wear her leather "fashion" boots. I instruct her to stay out of the snow, puddles, and mud. We arrive at the bus stop, where the other kids are trying to repair the snowman they made yesterday morning (that an evil 5th grader kicked over). Of course, Katrina heads straight in to the snow, and is upset that I remind her to stay out of the snow ("Those aren't snow boots.").

Luckily, a few good things happened - I practiced my horn, got to watch the finish of today's race, had a good doctor's appointment (more inflation - I'm up to AA cup). Some not-so-good things happened too - I didn't get my morning bike ride, so I have to squeeze it in after school; I ate junk food for lunch and now regret it; so it counteracted the good things, and I'm back to grumpy.

I'm crossing my fingers that I don't blow up if she comes home with muddy boots. I'm thankful she's going to spend the weekend at Nana and Papa's house. I need a break from that mini-me.

Yeah, I'm griping about the economy.

We all know the economy is in the toilet. So-called experts keep saying it's improving. Well, I don't know where they're looking, because here at home, it continues to suck.

I work in retail, an independently owned business in our little town. The last year has been rough. We've cut our staff - between the two stores, we have three regular employees. We've cut our hours - during January and February, we were only open four days a week. Even our inventory is down.

I often joke about how I am able to get a lot of knitting done at work. There have been days where we had zero sales for the day. That's tough. It's hard to make payroll when there's no money coming in. Today, it just seemed slower than usual. We had some sales, nothing to shout about, but better than zero. I'm guessing it was the snow, although by 10 am, the roads were fine.

I had my knitting, and I made a serious dent in the pair of socks I'm working on. I knit so much that my hands got tired and I had to take a break for a while and read a cookbook (copied down some yummy recipes - a perk of working in retail!). My boredom barometer is set by how motivated my boss (the general manager) is for the day. I think we went off the scale today. I think she set a record for non-store related busy-work. I believe she also read a cookbook, she baked a pan of brownies (and had to make a trip to the market for some ingredients), and she fell asleep - TWICE! She said she sat down on the stairs and dozed off for 15 minutes, woke up and rolled over (!?!), and fell asleep again for 15 more minutes, until someone came into the store. Lucky for her, it was a friend of hers.

I can honestly say that I have never fallen asleep at work, yet...

Probably More Than You Needed To Know

Yes, I'll admit, this may be TMI, but so many people seem amazed at this process, I thought I'd go in to a little more detail. Plus, I had an awesome conversation about it yesterday that I just have to share.

So, I keep mentioning "inflation." I'll eventually have breast implants put in. But, placing the implants at the time of the mastectomy surgery puts too much stress on the tissues. So, instead, they put in tissue expanders. Essentially, they are balloons with injection ports. Each week, the doctor injects about 4 tablespoons of saline through the ports (just under my skin) and into the expander, slowly stretching the tissues until I am the size I want to be. When I reach that point, I have a second (and much easier) surgery to place the permanent implants. Those of you who know me in person, know I was a busty girl - DD cup. Right now, I think I'm an A cup, and I don't plan on going much bigger than a B cup. That's the advantage of this method, I can choose my size, and if I feel like I want a little more, it's no problem.

Something else you may not realize, is that when they do a total mastectomy, they remove everything "breast related" - that includes nipples and areolas. So, right now, I'm "blank." You do have to option of nipple reconstruction, and then they can tattoo areolas back on. I was telling someone about that yesterday, and how I'll probably not do that, and she said "Oh, you should have the tattoos, but get something fun instead - like smiley faces or suns!" I'm considering it.

Disaster averted

Now that was a close call.
I'm blaming my poor eyesight. (I am REALLY nearsighted, ya' know)

I'm so glad I re-read my email last night about our gig today! Turns out we play at 8:45PM, not am! It clearly says pm on my written schedule, on the LMS website, and in the email. But, for whatever reason, I wrote am on my calendar and arranged my work schedule as such.

So, that means I have the morning to do my workout and go to work after lunch. Then I get a little dinner break before our 8:45PM - 11:45PM gig. It's going to be a late night! Then, up early for skiing tomorrow. Yes, I'll have an extra-extra grande coffee, please.

Another busy weekend

It seems like I lounge around all week, and then, BAM! The weekend hits and I'm off and running.

Tomorrow's itinerary: morning gig with the Ladies ( we start playing at 8:45am, UGH), then straight to work at Giggles where it's "Game-A-Palooza". Hopefully, that will bring in some business. After work, I have my "fitness test" and, hopefully, some ice cream before bed.

Sunday, the Girl Scout troop has a ski trip. I'm playing lodge bunny: sipping cocoa and knitting on some awesomely cool striped socks. I suppose I'll check on the four first-time skiers a few times, play photographer, throw a few snowballs (if there are any - right now it's raining)

Then, monday I can relax again!

It's sit-up Thursday!

In the past, when I've tried to get in shape/train for a specific event, it's been a failure. I don't have a specific plan, I'm not motivated, and I can think of a million other things I need to be doing. This time, I vowed to make it different. I have hired a personal trainer/coach. He came pretty cheap since I'm married to him. So far, he has actually been helpful, has made a plan for me, and I'm sticking to it.

I started at the beginning of February. The plan says I am to do 10 minutes of cardio intervals (walking/running or cycling) twice a week, and one day of "core" work (mostly sit ups! YUK). I am supposed to add 2 minutes to the cardio each week. (Remember I'm pretty much starting from scratch, and I had major surgery 6 weeks ago) I did walk/run a couple of times, then the weather turned sour. Karl got my bike on the trainer before I even had to ask him, and I've been spinning since. 2 minutes a week didn't seem like much, so I went a little farther. On Tuesday, I did 30 minutes. That was more like it!

Last year I bought a cheap little TV to put in the office so I could watch DVDs while I rode. That got boring quickly, and that's why I quit. This year, the TV is still there, I watched it a couple of times, but my bike is in a different spot, and I can see the computer, so I pull up some bike racing footage and ride with the pros. That is my motivation.

I'm still having trouble with the "million other things I need to do" part, but I'm getting better, and believe me, I feel no guilt whatsoever that I should be vacuuming instead of spinning. Those cat-hair tumbleweeds can wait, I've got 100km to train for!

Things are looking good otherwise. I have yet another "inflation" today. I think I'm just about to the size I want.