Kelly is 30!

Today my little sis, Kelly, turns 30. Welcome to the club, Kelly. 30 means more age spots, adult acne, frown lines, and the beginning of sagging skin and droopy boobs. On the upside, it also means knowing that when you were 25, you didn't know everything after all. You also realize that even though your body may not be at it's peak anymore, you aren't done growing up. You never are. There's still so much to learn and experience. And that can be a good thing, if you let it. Kelly's 20s were kinda crappy, so I'm wishing her 30s full of life, learning, health, and happiness. I hope all the yucky stuff worked its way out already. Maybe you should try a triathlon to kick off your better, healthier 30s:) Happy Birthday, Kelly! I love you!

Another frustrating week

This week has been full of baseball practice, baseball games, 2 science projects, a school dance performance, 2 training sessions, and work. My house looks like a bomb went off. I could hardly drag my butt out of bed, but I did.... which is improvement. My meds aren't working quite up to par yet, and I'm definately feeling it. (my docs been messing with them for over 2 months now) It's all I can do to function on a basic level plus a little. This week I actually went into the office 3 times, which is an improvement over the last several months. I actually made dinner every night but one. I am doing better, it's just taking forever. I'm on the 3rd week of this new med/dose, and it takes 6-8 to feel the full effect. I'm getting impatient, and increasingly frustrated. If you don't want to "hear" my complaints, stop reading now.

I am sick of not feeling good. I am sick of feeling scatter-brained. I'm sick of not being able to concentrate. I am sick of the "I feel sorry for you" look on my husband's face. I am sick of the "Are you better yet?" and the "I'm pissed but can't say or do anything about it" look on my husband's face. I am sick of walking out of the house and then pretending that everything is okay. I am sick of feeling overwhelmed with any task.

I guess the difference is that I am feeling a bit better and now I care that I suck. Hopefully I'll continue to improve and life will be good again. Now I get to deal with the guilt of how none of this is fair to my husband or my kids. It's really hard to keep my brain from saying how much better they'd all be without having to deal with me. The only way I can sum it up is this:

I really hate the fact that fixing chemistry in the brain is trial and error. It takes way too long and is incredibly difficult to deal with. I just wish some scientist out there would figure a way to FIX it.

Feel the burn, then have some chocolate

This week I started training at Ikei Performance again. (ikeiperformance.com)I originally started last year, when then helped rehab my ankle in Sept/Oct.. During the holidays, training went kaput... but now I'm back at it. My new traininer's name is Jonas. He's a young (early 20's) Hawaiian kid. He's super nice but I don't think he understands that 30 something fat ladies don't like to push it quite as far at the pros.

Here's the thing: this gym's owners are clients of Jay's. Their main clientele is pro athletes (on Wednesday I worked out next to Larry Fitzgerald, today there was more NFL prospectives/AZ Cardinals). Wednesday was my first session on the new program, upper body. Not only is this program WAY harder than anything I've ever done, but they actually have pull-ups on there! (maybe they forgot that I'm a girl:) They have this giant rubberband thingy they used to help me pull all the way up, but then I had to contract the muscle on the way down for a 4 count (pull up on the 1 count, go down for a 4 count) OUCH! 3 sets of 10! My arms gave out a couple of times and poor Jonas had to basically push me up a lot of the time...still.. no mercy. Of course, these torturous pull-ups were only part of an equally evil workout: bench, lat pull downs, arnold presses, triceps, reverse curls.... blah, blah, all with more weight that I could manage. Apparently, they think that if you can complete the second set without help, you need more weight. If you get through the third set without your muscle giving out, you probably could have worked harder.

After my workout, my arms had the biggest knots in my bicepts. Immediately, I couldn't straighten my arms all the way. Still, two days later, the knots are painfully there. The way I hold my arms makes me like one of those meatheads on Venice Beach, only in a fat non-muscular body. Today was lower body....complete with shaking legs and almost puking.

Maybe the pros like to push to the point when your muscles totally give out, and then do another set... but I don't. I hope next week is better. Stupid me, I'm going again on Tuesday to repeat the upper body torture. When I asked about the level, the pain/knots, etc., Jonas said that they like to shock your muscles with the first program (lasts about 3 weeks). After that the weights go up but there are fewer reps and longer rest times. A lot of "beginners" experience the same thing. Oh goody!

You should know that I'm no wuss in the gym. I always work really hard and push through the pain, especially when I've got a trainer with me. (Kami should be able to vouch for me on this one) But this is a whole new ballgame, people. I'm trying to be optimistic and think of this like a giant experiment. If this summer's triathlon is exponentially better than last year's, I'll know that the strength training paid off. Last year I didn't do any strength training with the triathlon training. Until then, I'll suck it up and only vent silently, on my blog:)

With all this work, I need some chocolate. Yesterday was not only Valentine's Day, but Jay's birthday. I made a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting, and then we all made truffles. It was really fun to get our hands in all that chocolate. My Swiss ancestors would not be pleased with the way they looked, but they were SINFULLY delicious.Chocolate makes everything "all better" (most of the time). I think I'll go have another... and then try another Sun Salutation.

The woes of family photos

I'm redecorating the wall in my TV room and looking for family photos to make a collage. This is the best I could come up with....and it's from last July when we were in CA for a wedding.... and it's not very good. You wouldn't believe that this is the best one out of about 50 shots. There is only 5 of us. You wouldn't think it would be so hard to get all of us to take a good pic.... at the same time. It doesn't help that I HATE every photo I'm ever in (common problem, I know). Maybe one day I'll finally loose weight and Eric won't be laughing or making a face and Bekah and David will look at the camera at the same time.... yeah, right!

So.... I'm trying to decorate the wall behind my TV...... it's a 42 inch flat screen, and there is nothing on the wall behind it. I think that if I load the wall with pics it'll be too much. I'm at a loss for what to do with it. Any ideas?

Here's the TV wall:

Here's the opposite wall:

I'm open for suggestions.... my creative juices have gone missing since about 2001.

Oh My Achin' Cheeks!

Okay, so I only rode 6 miles today. BUT, here's why:

I have been having trouble sleeping and so am now taking sleeping pills at night. Yesterday morning I was still a little groggy and was walking downstairs (in socks, down the wooden stairs) and fell on my butt and seriously... bounced... down the rest of the steps. My tailbone and elbow hurt the rest of the day, with my husband laughing his head off every time I complained. Today, I didn't want to wuss out on my ride, so I went. Those "bike riding" bones hurt right away, then hurt REALLY bad after the first 3 miles. Seeming how I haven't ridden in like 5 months, I can only agree with that old saying...... "Oh my achin' cheeks"!

Since I'm new to this blog thing, I figured I'd post a few pics.....

This is me and my sweetie of 16+ years.

My kiddos.... Eric (14), Rebekah (12), David (11)

Bekah's favorite place........ in front of the TV. Here, she's mad at me because I made her clean her room before she could watch any more TV.

My boys in their usual position for this time of year.... in the backyard playing baseball.

Blogger Newbie

I have no idea if I'm doing this right, so we'll see how this works out.

This week I got on my bike for the first time in like 5 months. I didn't realize how much I missed it! I'm attempting to start training for another triathlon, so I hope this helps jump start my motivation to get up early for long bike rides again. I know I'll feel better when I do.... it's just that I am so NOT a morning person. I'm planning on a 10 mile ride tomorrow morning (I know that's not long, but after being away for 5 months, I'm sure my butt will be REALLY sore) and then write my training program. I really need the endorphins.......wish me luck!