Wednesday, December 28, 2011

When the Guitars Scream, I Don't Have To

I'm turning into quite the metal-head in my old age. Choreboy and I were hosing down the house the other week in preparation for the Gum Zombie's 9th birthday party, both jamming out to our MP3 players.

He? Was listening to Air Supply.

I? Was listening to Iron Maiden.

We're twisted, but it works for us.

I'm sick today, and when Choreboy came home there I was, resting in bed listening to Bullet for my Valentine's Scream, Aim, Fire album. Not something restful, no no no... no, an album labeled "Explicit" on iTunes.

I'm going to lose my Sainted Mother trophy. I just know it.

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I had jury duty a couple of weeks ago, and of course it was the week that overlapped the 15th of the month, which is payday/ bill paying time at the office. Now if I died, they'd figure out a way to pay everyone, but as I'm not dead yet (I feel happy!!!), the plan was that if it came down to it I'd just come in the night of the 14th and run everything out for payday, then come in the night of the 15th and run out all the AP checks.

My group of jurors was slated for a felony trial. We were trapped up on one of the top floors of the courthouse for over 3 hours with no access to caffeine (speaking of cruel and unusual punishment), and right as we were about to be taken in for voir dire, the bailiff came out and said, "The trial has been continued. The judge said to tell you thank you for your service."

Most of our group agreed that this was, indeed, proof there is a Santa Claus.

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Christmas was a frenzy of cooking, baking, and dining insanity. A week prior was the Gum Zombie's afore-mentioned birthday which included a Bakugan cake -- NOT made by me, thank goodness -- and a warm bacon blue cheese dip that was. Then we had the office Christmas party, then Christmas Eve at my house featuring Death By Lasagna and a cream cheese pound cake. The entire insanity-fest culminated at my parents' on Christmas day with more Bacon Blue Cheese dip, crazy amounts of cheese, beef tenderloin, Super Taters, and a triple-decker gingerbread cake with cream cheese frosting studded with crystalized ginger.

My stomach hurts just typing all that.

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Speaking of weight... I'm not speaking about it. Or maybe I am. Since the ablation I've been off-kilter. Cravings have been out of control, and adding to that I'm having severe bloating in my chest which isn't helping matters at all. I don't know what I weigh right now because I'm sick of getting on the scale even when I'm doing everything right and seeing it go up, and frankly, since I have not been doing everything right for the past couple of weeks or so, I shudder to think of what the results are now.

I'm getting back on that bad boy in mid-February and not a minute before. I'm picking that date because my GYN says I should know the final results of my ablation at that point, and I'm hoping that means the chestal insanity (I just went down a bra size, people -- and now I swear I'm up one! at least! and this is not a positive, kids) will have abated. Until then I'll eat and exercise as I should without the shriek-fest my recent weigh-ins have engendered.

Now all I need is for someone to start texting my lazy ass next week* at 5:00 AM ET so I'll haul my butt out of bed and knock out my cardio before I can come up with an excuse not to do it. Any volunteers, please hit me up in email and I'll shoot you the number.

Accountability is a good thing.

*I have a very bad cold on top of everything else right now, so this isn't an "I'll start in 2012" issue, so much as it is the "I can't breathe through my nose and it's dripping anyway" type.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Activity -- Huzzah!

I finally made it back onto the treadmill today. Hooray! It was the first day I actually didn't feel too gross to sweat (recovery from the ablation involves ****TMI ALERT**** discharge in varying quantities and NO tampons, which leaves me feeling like a huge pile of ick ****END TMI ALERT****), and it was good to actually move myself just for exercise sake again. I only did 30 minutes on the treadmill at a rather low 3.1 MPH, minimal incline, but bear in mind that on Friday I pitched myself over the dog gate yet again, resulting in two horribly bruised and otherwise damaged already-iffy knees.

Sad thing is, on Thursday I'd just been thinking how neither knee hurt finally! And wasn't that great? And that if I were smart and cautious, maybe I could start back to running...

Uh-huh. We all know where this is going. You know that old saw about "If you ever want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?" I always get hit by that one. Good grief.

So anyway, 30 minutes on the treadmill, hooray! Both knees were slightly displeased with me when I was done (they'd prefer I never walk again as I appear to be rather bad at it), but they've already gone back to their pre-walk distant throb, so it's all good there.

If I didn't know better I'd swear my orthopedist has set up a system to raise the dog gates at random intervals to help me trip a bit more frequently so I'll push up the arthroscopic procedure he has in mind for when I can't stand my right knee anymore. There's no one damaged structure, just general degradation of the joint and "debris," in his words. Chondromalacia patella is the actual diagnosis, which I believe is accurately translated as Damn you're old, and your knees sure know it!

Ahem.

Anyway, I can let him go in and "clean it up in there" if I want, and part of me does want, but the other part of me says "Six weeks of no weight-bearing? And this is on my right knee, which means no driving? Uhm... no. Thanks just the same." I get 2 weeks of sick leave per year which I use up by October at the outside thanks to the kids, so nothing is banked. And beyond that, the transportation issue is huge. Public transit isn't an option (it's non-existent for folks in my end of town -- we're outside the city limits and even inside it's iffy), and even though I know my family and Choreboy would pitch in where they could, there are also the boys to consider and again, SIX WEEKS. It's just not feasible.

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In other news, I made my first tart! This one was a browned butter tart topped with cranberries that I found at the Food & Wine website: linked here. Sucker took over 4 hours out of my life, but it was good.


The crust isn't gorgeous visually, although it was very tasty because I was careful not to overwork the dough and kept it chilled, but it was my first homemade crust, after all. Usually I figure the Publix refrigerated pie crust is sufficient. Practice is a marvelous thing, and I suspect this is a recipe that will have to be repeated.

Okay, enough! Must finish reading my book of the moment, Tim Dorsey's When Elves Attack. Any book with these opening lines:

"My name is Edith Grabowski. I'm ninety-three years old, and I've decided to stop having sex.

I guess you just reach a certain age,"

has my vote. Hee! Have a good one, y'all :)