Wednesday, May 30

green green grass!

before:

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after:

May 29..  176_7655 (Medium)

they still have to do the front yard but does the backyard ever look good! we need to get a sprinkler and start watering the new lawn, soaking it twice a day.

and, not sure if i mentioned this, we bought a barbeque last thursday. it's being delivered tomorrow and the natural gas is being hooked up saturday. all i need is a "chaise longue" and i'll be all set for the best tan ever. and full belly i guess. i'm hoping ng bbqs won't be as scary as propane ones. did i mention that i hate barbequing because of the explosive nature of propane?

tanning, barbequing... best. summer. ever!

Monday, May 28

i run you run we all run run run

title is definitely not as good as the ice cream chant. oh, the ice cream chant....

i ran on saturday. i'm hurting now but i was pretty much okay for the race. i was really worried about my calf and how it would feel (ie. hurt) but it was fine. my time was a little slower than last year, just over an hour total, but i finished and i didn't hurt myself more. so i'm happy. and i do have pictures, some really good ones, but i haven't taken them off the camera yet.

it was a busy weekend and i'm guessing this will be a busy week since it's the last week in the country for my brother and for j's sister. not sure exactly how that will make us busier than usual though.

okay, more later when i can post some pictures.

Friday, May 25

where did the time go?

has anyone else noticed that it's the end of may already? honestly, what happened? this year is flying by. maybe by not playing baseball this summer i'll have a chance to spend some time relaxing and actually notice the time as it passes. maybe but maybe not.

my race is tomorrow. it actually snuck up on me too. maybe it's because i haven't been thinking about running lately and actually haven't run in two weeks. i'm going today after work to switch to the 10K and maybe look at shoes. they always have tons and tons of shoes there for real cheap. the past two years i've been able to find my kind in my size for about half the regular price. good deals.

for some reason, the week after the long weekend is always a tough one and this week was no different. i was getting about 5 hours of sleep a night and finally crashed last night. my big plan was to go to bed early without napping after work. i was doing fine until i went to read my book in bed. it was hot and i was obviously super tired so i fell asleep. for two hours. but was it ever nice! and i was still able to fall asleep at night, about an hour later than usual. not bad.

so today i'm feeling good. we got to work pretty much on time and get a little break for a funeral (j's grandparent's neighbour and good friend) and then it's the weekend. i have some friends coming to town for race weekend so i'm hoping to see them and catch up. it's been too long, like always.

but only because time passes too quickly.

Thursday, May 24

so tired

okay well, there's more to say. i still can't quite remember everything we did this past weekend even though i was sober the whole time. j sealed the garage floor so all of our stuff was on the front step and in the hallway inside. stuff everywhere. thankfully, we were able to put everything (except the car) back in the garage tuesday after work with the help of some new shelves.

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we ended the long weekend with a bbq at our neighbour and j's coworker, jp's house. we sat and talked and ate and talked more. it was nice to finally spend some time with jp's girlfriend.

we got home that night and started the week off with very little sleep because sleeping properly after a weekend of staying up late and sleeping in late is impossible.

tuesday was a regular work day, but i yawned more than any other day i'm sure. i had hockey late tuesday night so the bad, no-sleeping continued. yesterday we slept in and got to work 2 hours late (note to us: maybe we should start work later so we can actually work a whole day) but only stayed one hour later than usual. -1 hour. i had baseball last night, late, and guess what? i'm tired today. but the plan for tonight is to go for a run and then go to bed early.

i have no updates on running because i haven't been for the past two weeks. i wish i could say that my leg is feeling much better, but after my warm-up run last night at baseball, it was killing me. even the 10K is looking a little long. i'm going today or tomorrow to switch my race so we'll see what i do about that.

3 weeks tomorrow we fly out to bc. i'm looking forward to the trip and, hopefully, the sleep.

Wednesday, May 23

stayin alive stayin alive

i'm still alive - i just took a break from blogging. it was a long weekend afterall. and a busy long weekend at that.

friday night we had some friends over. it was really nice to see m&r after so long. and i really thought the 8 of us got along well. definitely some of my favourite people, all in one room. it was nice.

j left a little early to go see permanent daylight's last show. he called at 1:45am asking if i wanted a junior chicken. he was drunk. i said no. then, around 2:30, when i had just gone to bed, i hear the key in the door. and then the hugest, not-stealthy-at-all hiccup ever! and then about 10 more of them. j was convinced the mcdonalds gave him the hiccups. i think the rum and cokes might have had something to do with it.

saturday was the going-away party / family sees my house for the first time party. not everyone could come, but we had a good time with the people there. my family is a good bunch of people. but really, i can't believe that this guy:

Day 143 May 19  176_7612 (Medium)

is actually smart enough to have figured out how to leave the province and the country (and the continent!) and actually survive. he has (almost) everything sorted out. he leaves on sunday. i'm guessing mine and his relationship will be much like it is now. i don't call him and he doesn't call me and we see each other the odd time. sad but true. he's a bad communicator and i'm stubborn. don't get me wrong though, we do get along, we just don't see each other much.

anyways, that little get together was early saturday afternoon and then j and i went next door for a bbq with the neighbours. their house is the mirror image of ours so it was fun to see it and for j to try and pee in the garage (the bathroom and garage are across from each other and obviously opposite in either house) and to get to know our neighbours.

i can't remember if we did anything else saturday night. in fact, i'm going to sleep on it and update this post later. sorry!

Friday, May 18

can't go the distance

this post has nothing to do with my relationship and everything to do with running. i simply cannot run 21.1 km - the length of a half marathon - the way my leg is feeling. the drugs are working, but that doesn't mean that i won't hurt my leg if i attempt to run that far, i might just not FEEL it. and that scares me.

so i'm running the 10 km instead. 10 km is so much more attainable and possible and likely and safe. i like safe when it comes to my body. i don't want to make myself run the half marathon because it's something i think i should do when i haven't trained hardly enough and i have this leg thing going on. plus, i can always run it later.

i really like the saying "i run because i can" but right now, for me, 10 km is all i can run.

*huge sigh of relief*

Thursday, May 17

pink!

every now and then, i get a little bored with the appearance of my blog. and so the pink. i kinda like it.

long weekend - not soon enough

this week has been a long one and i can't wait for our day off on monday. we've been really bad this week at making lunches and at getting up on time. so bad that yesterday we didn't get to work until almost lunch. we were four and a half hours late. incredible. and then today we were 2 hours late. but we have an excuse for today. last night, i woke up at 3:45 to rolo puking. i followed him around the house and cleaned up his puke more than 10 times. and when he was done and we could finally go back to bed, i couldn't fall asleep because i wasn't sure if he was okay. yuck yuck yuck. at least he seemed like his normal self this morning.

in happy news, with the new drugs, my leg has been feeling much better. though it could be that i just can't feel the pain anymore. and that's why i'm scared to run the half marathon and have asked the race organizers if i can run the 10km instead. i haven't run for almost a week so i'm going to try tonight and see how it feels.

but we also have stuff to do around the house. we're having people over friday night. at first it was only going to be s&l but then it made sense to open it up to a&s and m&r as well. good thing we have chairs or else there wouldn't be room for everyone to sit. i'm definitely looking forward to seeing everyone, especially m&r who have been gone for the past 6 months (maybe more?).

and then saturday afternoon is the going-away party for my brother, who is leaving june 1st for his year in prague. we have most of the family coming over. again, we're thankfull for the extra chairs.

but then sunday and monday are open and hopefully will be relaxing. i need to relax.

Tuesday, May 15

if only

if i could access my flickr page at work i would post the picture of the huge bruise on my calf but you'll have to settle for a link - it's my picture of the day from may 10th. i can't believe i haven't mentioned it on here. last sunday (may 6) i ran 16 km. my left calf was bothering my after the run and for days. well, actually, it still is, but monday night i noticed a huge bruise on my calf right where it was hurting most. i was a little relieved to know that i wasn't making up the pain, but a little worried because the middle of the bruise was a large bump. so i went to see my doctor yesterday who said that i had a major muscle pull and prescribed some anti-inflammatories and then confirmed that the bruise was a bug bite, most likely a spider bite.

i almost swore at him i was so mad! what are the chances of me getting a bug bite right on my calf where it hurts right after running longer than i've ever run? slim to none, except that it happened. gross.

so that's the running/calf/soreness/bug bite story.

but another, more exciting, story is that yesterday after work, j went with his work friend, steve, to pick up a little puppy. it's a cross between a pug and a beagle and is teeny tiny. j wants him to call her puglie but i doubt that'll happen. (puglie link until i can access my pictures). the little dog was a little scared and was having some tummy trouble and apparently stunk up the whole car! such a little dog, such an awful smell.

now, the beef of the post: my ex boyfriend got married this past saturday. and, thanks to the geniuses at facebook, there are already pictures up. and yes, i looked at them. i had some things hit me real hard. 1. i'm very glad he's happy. and it's so obvious that he's happy and i'm happy for him. lalala. 2. i'm very glad it wasn't me. we dated for over two years and i know things could have turned out differently if this and if that, but they didn't and i went off and found j and seeing the ex on his wedding day makes me so very happy about all the choices i've made and with j and my little family and with how far i've come since then.

there is no doubt that x and i had a good time together and got along well. but there is also the fact that we weren't meant for each other and i'm so glad i figured that out. there's nothing like a starter marriage these days, but it just isn't for me. and neither was he.

Monday, May 14

catching up

this weekend i spent a lot of time catching up. lately i've been finding that my days are dragging on but the weeks are flying by and all of a sudden it's may. it's already a third of the way through the year and i could have sworn it isn't even my birthday yet. time to slow down and smell the roses.

and i wish that was a seguay (or however you spell it) to a grand story of me going to see all the tulips, but it isn't. i didn't see the tulips, but i do plan on it. just haven't figured out when.

friday at work, i made a little sticky note for myself with the things we had to do on our way home. on it were catfood, drugs and stools. sounds bad, but it isn't. the catfood that our little cats can stomach was recalled so we had to switch to another sensitive diet food, which is a big hit, but we needed more. so we got that, and then we picked up some "drugs" for j, which is really protein shake stuff. and then we picked up our two lovely stools.

Day 135 May 11..  175_7530 (Medium)

we are very happy with them and have already eaten two meals at the kitchen counter. on the way from the stool place, we had to go by the place we got our dining room light fixture and we knew they were having a sale so we stopped and got the matching wall sconce for the hallway going down to the basement. perfect!

May 11..  175_7529 (Medium)

and then on saturday we went to ikea and bought the dining room chairs but not the table. the table, in the colour we want, isn't in stock yet. but the chairs are on sale and likely being discontinued so we got 6 of those. then we had a race to see who could put together chairs faster. i lost. big time. and, just so you know, i signed the bottom of the chair i put together so that when it breaks and someone falls and hurts themselves, once we're sure they're okay, we can laugh at me. i'm a good sport.

chairs but no table:

Day 136 May 12..  175_7532 (Medium)

we also got an extra mat for the front. it took two trips to ikea for me to convince j and now he's talking like he thought of it. he does that. finds something he likes and then claims to have invented it. it can be annoying, but he's cute so it's okay.

and finally, we got some curtains for the upstairs bedrooms. the house gets super duper hot when it's hot and sunny out and then the upstairs stays hot when you're trying to sleep. dark curtains are the answer. no pictures of those yet because they aren't all up and pretty yet.

i also caught up on being social. friday night we went to a bbq with some of j's work friends. i had the best pasta salad ever and then sucked hard at guitar hero (am i good at anything?) but blamed it on my left-right-handedness. i maintain that being ambidextrous is a good thing, but sometimes it's a curse. come to think of it, my terrible guitar hero skills could be blamed on the mojito i had. hmm... saturday, we did our shopping-for-house-things and then went for pho with pike and watched the hockey game with him and his little dog. crazy little dog. and, because i can't run, i had a beer. one extreme to another for me.

sunday was family day, well mother's day, so we saw a lot of family. we went to kanata to see my parents and then picked j's mom up at the airport and had dinner and the coffee with her and j's sister.

it was a good, long, relaxing weekend lacking in stress and not-fun things and full of friends and family and fun. absolutely perfect. oh, and by the way, i caught up on uploading my pictures so head on over to my flickr site.

Thursday, May 10

anorexia understood, kinda

i use this blog as a launching page. i open it up and visit most of the links on the right every day. i told you i blogged for myself. anyways, i have to scroll down if i want to go to all my friend's blogs and i keep seeing the pictures of me with the kitten. i also see them when i log into my flickr page. and i'm skinny. it hits me every time.

i've never been a big girl. i was bigGER in first year university when the frosh-15 hit me, plus 5, but even then i wasn't big big. but i still don't consider myself all that skinny. i see all sorts of other girls and think they're smaller than me. seeing these pictures of me makes me think that maybe about half of those smaller girls are actually smaller, but that half of them must be bigger.

and then i get it. i can kinda understand the aspect of anorexia where the person thinks they're fat. we really have a skewed perspective of ourselves and i believe that it's because we are mostly looking out from ourselves and never really see our bodies the way other people do. to me, my feet always look super big but it's because i see them from the top. most people don't even notice my feet, let alone how long they are.

it also has to do with what we hear from other people. people tell me all the time that i'm skinny but i never really HEARD it until i was at my doctor's office and the admin, who is a very petite woman, said i was a "teeny thing". i'm shrek-sized compared to her. and then i realized that we both look at each other and think the other is smaller. why do we do that? how do i change how i see myself? is the media to blame or is it ingrained deep within me to see and exaggerate my flaws?

and really, i'm comfortable with my body and never get on a scale. i don't know where my perception of myself comes from but now that i understand it better, i'm going to do what i can to change it and to remind myself that it really doesn't matter. really.

Tuesday, May 8

take a seat

friday recap: i spent most of my work day friday bumbling through, doing my normal whatevers, but then i felt really sick so i went home around 1 and left j to find his own way home. i'm nice that way. i managed to sleep from about 1:30pm until almost 7 and then woke up for a bit, ate, ran and internetted, and then back to sleep for almost 12 hours. apparently, i wasn't feeling well AND i was exhausted.

saturday recap: the 12 hours of sleep took me until 1:30pm so i had a pretty lazy day. j had left early that morning for a car thing where we had our car detailed for free. it is so sparkly and shiny and clean now (thanks jamie!) so i was left to do whatever almost all day. i can't say i did much - some laundry, some tv watching, some showering (well, just one shower), some eating - and then j got home and we went to ikea and found a dining room table we like (didn't buy it though) and headed to kanata for a bbq and hockey game watching at j&s's house. s's parents had just moved out so it was celebratory in that way. and there was bbq'd food.

we left after the first period and headed downtown to catch our friend landon's second last show. his band, permanent daylight (remember them?) were playing at cafe dekcuf. he was given two beer tickets and gave us one. so i drank most of a beer. incredible. it was a good show and we were home pretty early so that was good. plus, j kept telling me i looked nice. apparently brushing my hair makes me look nice. (a little history: once, a bunch of years ago, i got my hair cut and when j saw me he asked me if i brushed my hair! a little brushing goes a long way!)

recap sunday: i woke up early sunday (early for me) and started making pancakes. it's the batter in a box kind of pancakes and i was a little weary about this box because my saturday pancake was disgusting. so i actually looked at the box only to find out that it wasn't "add water" like the last box, it was "add milk and an egg"! oops! so i put the batter and the milk and the egg in the bowl and was stirring the incredibly dry mixture when i realized i put twice as much batter as i was supposed to. i read 300ml of batter and put in 3 cups. i don't understand me either. so i made a double batch of pancakes, but at least they tasted good this time.

after my breakfast settled, i geared up for my long run. since the race is fast-approaching, i need to start putting in the distance so i tried for 16K and i'm proud to say that i made it 15.8 and was only gone for about an hour and 40 minutes. it was hot and my face got sunburnt and my body was killing me (and still is!) but i did it! that is 5.8K longer than i have ever run. this sunday: 18K. the sunday after that: not as far. and the sunday after that: race day! 21.1K!

i also had baseball practice sunday night. yes, i quit this year, but i also told my team that i would come out if they ever needed players. well, they need players this week and thought that maybe a practice before stepping into a game would be a good idea. so not only are my legs and feet killing me, my arms are in pain now too. c'mere, advil!

monday recap: i went to a workshop on the 7 habits to a healthy life at work and learned some neat things. because of my bad memory, i can't tell you what those 7 habits are, but i was given a website to go look at. the thing i do remember though, is that we are conditioned to think negatively. you ask someone who has back pain, for example, how they want to feel and they'll tell you that they "don't want to feel pain." exactly, that's what you DON'T WANT to feel. now, how do you WANT TO FEEL? get it? they want to feel "great" but they can't say that. it was interesting to have that pointed out. i've caught myself a bunch of times saying things like that. weird.

we stopped by staples on our way home from work and bought a new desk chair. the one we had was mine from university. a $40 walmart chair that lasted since second year but was finally falling apart. actually, falling apart. so now we have a brand new and very comfy desk chair and rolo has a new box to play in.

i went to baseball last night. we won and i played okay. i went 1 for 3 and had a good catch in the outfield. plus, i almost threw out a girl at first from center! that would have been great. and if j had a blog, he would tell you about his friend, pike, and pike's dog. this dog apparently smells like nachos but sat with j while he played games / watched tv and j was a happy camper about that. too bad we have cats, j, but at least they smell like nachos... is that a good trade off?

Friday, May 4

kitten!

we went over to see the new kitten again last night. poor a&s are having people coming over all the time now. the little cat ran around the whole time we were there and passed out right before we were leaving. she passed out on the couch so sylvia put her in my lap. she was happy to stay asleep.

pictures!

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Thursday, May 3

day off

i took yesterday off from blogging. mostly because i had nothing to say. will today be any different... not sure.

because of my back, i didn't play hockey tuesday night. i have no idea how my team did, but am guessing that they won since that's what we seem to do. my back is feeling better though. i'm still not sure what exactly i did to it, but i was able to run last night. i think it might just be that i'm getting older and don't recover as well as i used to. but i'm okay now and that's all that matters.

oh, and about running, i'm raising funds for the ottawa hospitals this year. i have a page all set up if you would like to donate online (i also accept cash or cheques) but don't want to link to it here because it has my name (i need to feel like not just anybody can find this blog) but please please please let me know if you would like the link. i will be sending out an email soon. (and asking for the link doesn't mean you HAVE to donate. you can always just look at the page.) i'm hoping to raise $150 and will see how the next couple of weeks go, if i have to up that amount.

in other news, my brother leaves june 1st for prague. he is spending a year-ish there for work. i'm very proud of him. we are not well-travelled and for him to be able to pick up and move across the world is amazing to me. we are hoping to have a little going-away party for him.

and at the same time, a little going-away party for j's sister who is leaving june 2nd for afghanistan. she is going on a 6 month rotation (look at me picking up the lingo! it's actually just a "roto" in deployment-speak) as a civilian. again, super impressive.

i would be huddled in a corner, wimpering. probably. but that's just me.

so may is proving to be a busy month full of stuff to do. at least we get a long weekend because i don't think i can handle this month without getting more sleep.

Tuesday, May 1

finally

i finally know what it feels like to throw ones back out. i don't know if it was my run or the stretching afterwards, but my back, the lower left part specifically, is in agony! i had a hard time sleeping last night because no matter how i lay, my back was bothering me. thankfully, once i was asleep, the pain didn't wake me up. but now that i'm at work, i'm not a happy camper. i can only sit up straight straight which isn't as comfortable as slouchy slouchy. whine whine whine.

i got to see a&s's new kitten yesterday. i had a doctor appointment just down the street from their place and it went quickly so i decided i had time to stop by. what a cute little cat!! it's very fluffy and bouncy and clumsy in the little-kitten kind of way. very cute. she makes my little cats seem huge.

that's about all i have to say today. well, right now. have a happy first day of may, only 3 weeks left until the long weekend!