Changes of Late

Having some trouble blogging lately.  But I feel if I'm forcing myself to post when I have nothing to share or just ain't feelin' it, then I shouldn't bother.

Random happenings:

We have a fuller household right now, and it's great!  Addison moved in the first week of May, along with Sadie and Betsey.  Duke has playmates, and her pups have a backyard for the first time in their lives (and a dog park with actual grass).  It's been great helping Addison get away from Midland and making a fresh start somewhere better.  She's had several interviews and is waiting to hear on one that was very promising.  She's had more interviews by age 21 than I've had my entire life.  Impressive.

My granddaughter has a name, Emma Elaine.  She weighs about 1/2 pound and is the size of a mango.  I can't wait to see her when she's a little watermelon.  She is letting her momma know she's alive and kicking, literally.  How am I not going to spoil her rotten? 

This spring and summer is getting busy, in a good way.  We've been to St. Louis, Alan has two business trips in May, we go to Houston next month and perhaps back to St. Louis, and have possibly three different rounds of visitors in June alone.  Love having company.  Bailey and Michael will likely be visiting for a few days around July 4th, partly to check out Tulsa.  They are tentatively planning to move here in December or January after that little watermelon gets here.

St. Louis was great.  It was big, urban, green, and friendly.  We went to two Braves vs. Cardinals games, and the Braves won both.  I'll always remember getting to see Chipper Jones in his very last season and the standing ovation a stadium full of opposing fans game him at his first up at bat.  Awesomeness.  Stay classy, St. Louis.

Look at the lady in the background, above.  Haha!  This is a great picture of Alan.  Look how pretty his eyes are. :-)

This was the "Girls on the Run" 5K we ran Saturday morning, which benefited St. Louis public schools running and sports programs for girls.

Not running much, but not giving it up either.  Still have miscellaneous issues to deal with, but some areas have healed up.  A few weeks ago we did a run organized by the OSU Osteopathic program.  While waiting for Alan to finish his run, I got an evaluation and "adjustment" from one of the students and supervising doctor in the program.  We focused mostly on my hip, and I'm happy to say I've been feeling very little to no hip discomfort since then.  But as is the norm, once one area heals, another flare up happens elsewhere.  Now it's my knee.  In the meantime, Addison and I are frequent visitors to the Y and have started joining in some classes.

I'll try to get back into the blogging thing, but my pissy neighbor hasn't given me much to write about lately.

Some Junior love

Sweet fat kitty has taken over the dog's bed.  I shouldn't call him fat.  Taking inspiration from The Help, I like to give him words of encouragement. "You is kind, you is smart, you is important."  I like to stress the kind part, hoping he'll start believing it himself and ACT LIKE IT.

More Junior goodness:

Faced one fear

So here's how the whole day at the shooting range came about.  Alan's dad brought down a .357 Magnum that was either his dad's (Leigh's dad) or his brother Pete's, we're not sure.  I don't know why we're not sure.  (I could write an entire post on the way Alan communicates with his family.  If you know Alan, you know that he gives every minute detail in any given story or account of his day, so why he doesn't ask for details in return, such as WHO gave us said gun, is beyond me.)  Oy.  Regardless, it was a very nice gift and we were told by the gun range folks that it's an awesome gun.

I am not and have never been a fan of guns.  Don't like being in the same room with one, and especially don't like being in a room with someone touching one.  Even if it's not loaded, I assume a bullet got left in the chamber by mistake and am therefore very uncomfortable.  Really, really bad things have happened with guns around.  Let's say you have a knife that you're holding and it accidentally falls and stabs me in the foot.  I'm going to cry, but I'm going to live.  But if you accidentally fire off a gun around people, someone could DIE.

Back to the Dirty Harry gun.  We took it to a shooting range to see if Alan could practice with it.  Since he had never shot a pistol, they suggested he not go straight to a .357 and instead that we get a little training and practice with a .22.  We scheduled a day to go through the training a week later.  I'll be honest.  I was not loving life.  I also wasn't being forced to do this, but figured it gave me a little leverage for one of Alan's future Fridays off.  Oh, you have the day off?  Let's go get facials or massages.  You'll love it!!

So I didn't go to the training (a private lesson with just us and the instructor) kicking and screaming, but I was quite nervous.  The instructor was awesome and made sure we understood all of the "classroom" info before entering the range.  Oh, the range.  The ultimate in scary.  A dozen people with guns of all shapes and sizes, being allowed to shoot at will.

Alan was up first, and he basically nailed it.  Here's his whatever-you-call-it-sheet.  I wasn't too thrilled that I had to follow that.

I did okay.  Here's mine.

I will say however, that it's kind of hard to focus on the sight and aim when you CAN'T SQUINT. I don't know why my face won't contort the way the rest of yours does, enabling you to shut one eye and really concentrate with your dominant one.  But since I was in my 30s before I learned to whistle, I'm not too surprised.  Where was my dad when I was little?  Wasn't he responsible for teaching me these skills?  

Anyway, I actually enjoyed myself.  We'll go back, soon probably, to practice some more.  Until then, I need squinting lessons.
 

It has definitely sprung.

So this is Spring.  Spring in Tulsa is an in-your-face kind of season - you can't miss it.  I don't know what all is coming up in our beds, but I know I have a lot of new plants and shrubs and trees to learn about.  I'm afraid I'm going to pull something up thinking it's a weed and not get rid of weeds that I mistake for a pretty ground cover.  But then again, I have neighbors who will point that out.

Stuff I've never had before (sorry for the fuzzy photos):

Japanese Maple.  I once asked for one at a nursery in Midland, and the worker all but laughed in my face.

A Dogwood tree.  Thought it was something you'd only see in the southeast.

No idea what this is, but it's kind of pretty.  I do know that I don't like the big spiky leaf things growing all around and through it.  Some sort of flowering bulb I'm sure, but the leaves are not doing it for me and why would you plant a shrub on top of bulbs?

There are other plants - crepe myrtles, hydrangea, and phlox that I'm excited about but aren't blooming yet.  Yet another reason why leaving the desert has been a good thing.

My Adventure

Obviously I survived and finished the half marathon on Sunday.  I don't think anyone ever knew that when I joked about hoping medics would be on-hand, I was actually serious.  I was nervous about what might happen.  We all know our bodies better than anyone, and I knew I'd had some scary moments.  I have what I call my "episodes" where my heart palpitates too quickly, I get cold and clammy, and things start appearing fuzzy.  This has happened for years, but not frequently.  And recently I've been experiencing what I'm pretty sure is exercise induced asthma, which is a bit disconcerting when you don't know what to do during an attack.  It's new to me and kinda freaky.  So although I try to be a good sport when people don't believe I'm as slow as I am, or argue that "oh no, you won't take that long," or look embarrassed for me when I admit I usually stop to walk a bit after just two miles, their disbelief gets OLD.

My time was 2:49.  That's epically slow, I know.  But I'm still pretty happy with it.  It's only a few minutes longer than I was shooting for - 2:40.  Combining a mixture of running and walking, I wanted to run about 9 and walk 4.  I'm pretty sure that's what I did.  The first seven miles were great!  I was loving life!  I ran my fastest 5 miles, my fastest 10K, and at the halfway point I was at 1:16.  If I had been able to keep up that pace, I would have finished in 2:32.  But then came mile 7.  Good ole' mile 7.  Everything went downhill from there.  As I took a step past the 7 mile marker, I felt a shot of pain.  It felt like someone jabbed a large needle into my hip.  I actually gasped.  Perhaps some profanity followed.  I thought the run was going to be over.  But I walked a bit and soon figured out I could run a short distance without it hurting too bad.  Sadly at around mile 11, one of the runners was taken away in an ambulance.  It was about this time that I felt another shot of pain, but I was so close at that point it didn't matter.  My time had suffered tremendously, but I was happy knowing I was going to finish.  I was seriously fatigued and dealing with the asthma the last couple of miles, but Alan met me at about 12.5 miles and ran with me cheering and encouraging me on.  I don't think I ever thanked him for that. 

It was a great day, perfect weather, awesome company, and I did something I never thought I could do.  I wouldn't want to do another one unless I'm feeling 90-100% healed with absolutely no hip pain.  What I'm more interested in now is running faster 5 and 10Ks.  Just for funsies.


The "Team":  David, Alan, Karl, me, Ashley, and Heather - they were so great and so much fun.  And they kicked butt.

My dream world

My dreams lately are exhausting.  I wake up frustrated or annoyed and don't really need another factor that keeps me from sleeping well.  They're also recurring, the same theme almost every night.  Alan's become accustomed to me describing my dreams each morning.  This has been going on for two to three weeks.

So the basic theme is that I can't get where I'm supposed to be going.  I've had a few where I'm starting a new job and am having trouble getting around the building.  I'm trying to take the elevator to my floor, but I can't find the right elevator or corridor, or someone sends me in the wrong direction.  Last night some aliens, like those from Halo, were invading the building and blocking the elevators! 

Or I'm traveling and trying to catch a flight or a connecting flight.  Can't get to the gate or figure out where I'm supposed to sit.  Twice now I've dreamed that someone points me in a direction that ends up being a major construction area outside of the airport, with rubble and barriers, and it's completely deserted.

Or I'm teaching a class and can't find the class, or with a slightly different angle, can't find the supplies, lesson plans, etc. to teach the class. Or the classroom is dark, and I can't get the lights to work, geez.  It's a little different but kind of similar to the test dreams I used to have, where I have an important exam but am running late or forgot to study or can't find the room and ultimately blow the test.

I've often heard that what seems like the literal translation of a dream is not always the case.  But this does appear fairly straightfoward.  I'm not sure where I'm going.  And even if I sort of think I know where I'm supposed to be, I'm not prepared when I get there.

I definitely don't have a true sense of purpose right now.  I'm not working, and sometimes I feel a little self-conscious about that.  Alan and I are content with how things are, but I wrestle with it daily.   

And then again all these dreams could have to do with one specific thing.  It was three weeks ago that I found out Bailey is expecting.  I can say with certainty that I wasn't and still am not fully prepared for that and have no idea what the future holds.  And strangely, in at least two of these dreams, I've been holding someone's baby.  So weird!  Maybe after a while when Bailey has some plans in place, and I'm not worrying as much (although I think we're doing a good job handling this!), these dreams will subside...

Okay this song has nothing to do with dreams, but often when I can't sleep I think of an old James Taylor song "Sleep Come Free Me."  I don't know how to embed it correctly into Blogger, so go YouTube it.  Kind of dreary, but good.

My hair is no virgin

I almost treated my hair with an at-home keratin smoothing kit designed for people like me who long for naturally straight and smooth hair, until I read the warnings inside the package.  It stated not to use if you have EVER highlighted, bleached, permed, chemically straightened, etc., etc. your hair.  EVER!  So I called the company to confirm that since I permed my hair in the 80s (along with all the other girls wanting those big curly locks), and straightened my hair maybe 12-15 years ago, should I not use their product?  Were they really serious about the "EVER" part?

Yes, they were serious and said not to use their product.  I'm wondering how successful their product is going to be, when almost every female I know has treated their hair with at least one of the above methods.  Just thought it was weird.