Blogging 2015: 217 down, 1798 to go

The dog is currently eating one of L's valentines and I don't care.

Today is my Friday!  Hooray!  One more shift and seven off begins.  The Open WOD will be announced tomorrow night and I'll go bash it out on Friday morning, followed by yoga.  This weekend will be for laundry and finishing the unpack from vacation.  I can pack for vacation in 30 minutes, but it always takes me weeks to unpack afterwards.

Whenever I get back from a vacation I spend the next month fantasizing about the next one.  We'll spend a week in Jamaica! No, we'll take a 2 week cruise to Scandanavia! No, we'll go hiking in the Appalachians! And I research and research and research and plan and plan and plan.  And nothing will ever come of it.  It'll be years before we go on vacation again.  Sigh. If only everything didn't take so much time and money. Childcare is another hurdle. We'll do family trips (camping, national parks, etc) as the kids get older, but that's not vacation. If your trip involves kids under the age of 5 you are most certainly NOT on vacation. Also, traveling with a family of 5? Yeah, fuck that.  If you want to fly you're looking at 2 large minimum, and if you want to drive you'll be looking at your sanity in the rear view.  We'll be spending weekends in Door County for a few years.  Camping close to home is a good option for the cheap and impatient.

Anyway, at least mentally planning a vacation has been keeping me awake at work.

Last night's midnight lunch was leftover chicken stroganoff.  Relatively small portion, but fulfills my "it's warm or it's not a meal" criteria for midnight lunch.

Mmm. Lunch.

Had my standard carroty snack with eggs.  These carrots are delicious.  I could eat 10 pounds of them.

One peeled cleanly, one was wonky.

Had a chocolate cherry oatmeal smoothie and some cheese.  This smoothie was fluffy initially, but lost it's fluff jostling around in my lunch bag.  It was still tasty, but there was decidedly less volume.

chococherry oats is becoming a favorite.

I was never much of a toast eater prior to dropping grains a few years ago, but every now and then I go on a toast bender.  I've been buying Ezekiel bread because it has a nutty flavor and isn't nutritionally devoid the way most breads are.  It's tasty with a little butter and jam.  Hit the spot at 5am.

Took about 15 minutes to toast, though. 

Stupid hospital toaster.

I was a little peckish when I got home, so I mixed up a little PB2 (gasp! legumes!) and dunked a banana in it. I don't use PB2 very often, but it's good mixed with oatmeal or tossed in a smoothie.  You get peanutty flavor without a shitload of extra fat.  

Surprisingly tasty.

I slept fairly well today, which is always a good thing, and made cheesy chicken fingers for the kids.  Well, and myself.  With spicy mayo...mmmmm.

Mixed veggies AGAIN? was what I got from C. We have them maybe twice a month.

I washed some clothes, washed the spawn, clipped finger and toenails, and hopped on the treader for 3. Exciting stuff, right?

I stole this meme from the interwebs.  I would totally vote for NdGT for president. #scienceswag

Time to tuck in the spawn and hit the shower.  Last night in the salt mine.  Woo!

Blogging 2015: 214 down, 1801 to go

1801?  Seriously?  I should just go get on the fucking treadmill and pound that shit out right now.  But I won't.  Because I just ate a huge amount of cauliflower and I'm pretty sure I'd rocket right through the ceiling.  I'll bust it out tomorrow.

Today I learned that I am old.  I dosed some pentobarb for an anesthesia guy and explained what they were going to do to a pair of the techs.  I then imitated Billy Crystal's Miracle Max from The Princess Bride.  You know, the discussion about being "mostly dead" vs. "all dead"?  I was met with blank stares from my 20-something co-workers.  Blank. Stares.  I'm an excellent mimic, so it wasn't my impression that was at fault. Zero recognition.  Even when I explained the reference, one of them had no idea what I was talking about. So I took my dusty old bones and creaked out of the pharmacy.

Cut rhrough his clothes and look for loose change.

So I'm back from hiatus!  Mostly I didn't have anything meaningful to say and since I've not been getting any distance this week I figured why bother.  After vacation I seemed to come down with that creeping crud that was going around.  It was just that sort of low grade nagging illness that robs you of your ambition.  I was really tired and had some non-specific sinus symptoms plus a headache that would not die.  I drugged myself silly and went to work, but aside from some yoga I didn't do much.

Upon arriving home, I also weighed myself. I feel like that's pretty normal, checking in after vacation.  The number I saw was a deeply unhappy one, so I've been monitoring my intake this past week and I lost most of it.  I'm not beating myself up about it, just watching my portions to undo the damage.  So far, so good. I'm planning to spend the next 6 months working slowly toward my goal weight.  That should be plenty of time to take things in a moderate way and not be all crazy.  I will be weighing myself on Mondays, but ONLY on Mondays.

This past week at work has been largely uneventful, which is good.  Two more shifts and I can get back into my workout routine full force.  The CrossFit Open starts this week, and my half marathon training plan begins on Sunday, so I'll have lots of great stuff to motivate me.  I also spent some time last night plotting out my yoga classes for the next three weeks and getting them down in my calendar so I don't forget.  I also scheduled my WODs for the next 3 weeks so I get to the box as much as possible.  That first Open workout is going to hurt after being off for 2+ weeks, but I'm going to do it with #thefiveonefive so it's bound to be fun.

My midnight "lunch" was just leftovers from dinner the evening before.  Chicken, green beans, and sweet potato.  Basic and boring.

Mmmm. Boredom is delicious.

We bought a 10 pound bag of carrots at Costco last week.  Fantastic husband is all "Are we actually going to eat 10 pounds of carrots?" and I was all "Hell yes we are!" so now I'm trying to eat 10 pounds of carrots. Because damn it, if I can eat 13 pounds of oranges, I can eat 10 pounds of carrots. I also made some HBE because I need a good, filling snack overnight and plain veggies doesn't do it.

They've been peeling abnormally well.

I love oatmeal, but cooking it at work is challenging because I have to watch the microwave like a hawk or it boils over and makes a huge mess.  I can't really stand and stare at the microwave for 5 minutes, so I tried combining dry oats with almond milk, raisins, and spices while cold and letting them soak overnight. All I have to do is warm them up and eat.  Super easy and it worked out great.  Plus the raisins soak up the almond milk and get all fat and juicy, too.  Love it. I've done it a couple of times this week.

There was more at the outset.

Fantastic husband had CE today, so the kids went to daycare and I went to sleep.  I slept from 8 until around 2pm and then got up and had a cup of coffee.  I was debating going out for a run when husband came home and suggested a walk, so that's what we did.  We took the dog out for 3ish miles and it was lovely.  We also walked to get the kids from daycare instead of driving, so I counted that distance, too.

I look wide. Well, I am wide, so there you have it.

Dinner tonight was meatloaf and cauliflower mash.  Again, I thought "I should have some veg."  

Comfort food.

I'll cross over the 1800 mile mark tomorrow, and Thursday I'm hoping to hit the box for a WOD before the Open officially starts.  Friday will be the Open WOD at 0515 and yoga at noon.  I feel like a slug after just sleeping/working this week away, but shit happens and you move on.  I slept A LOT yesterday, and got good quality sleep today, so I'm set up for success on my week off.  

Slowly but surely, I will get this weight off.  One of these days I'm going to learn that if I stay the course I won't have to keep starting over.  I mean, I'm old enough to quote The Princess Bride...I should have this shit figured out by now.

Blogging 2015: 209 down, 1806 to go

Today was a home with the kids day, fortunately school wasn't delayed so the girl child was off at the appropriate time this morning.  We walked home, which meant that I got to bundle up and stand outside the school waiting for Little Miss Pokey to emerge.  At least the boys can stay inside with their teacher until she makes her exit-today she was nearly last and I was getting pretty cold.  C asked me why it wasn't warm when they left school, because the weatherman said it would be warmer in the afternoon.  I had to explain that "warmer" and "warm" are not the same thing.  He looked perplexed.

There was minimal breakfast bitching, which is a welcome change.  I had a hankering for an egg sandwich, so I made ham, egg, and cheese on Ezekiel toast.  It was pretty good, I have to say.  I bought raspberries at Costco this week and they were sweet like candy, so I had some of those as well.

With a runny yolk.  Tasty.

I feel like I was busy this morning, but I can't tell you doing exactly what.  I did some dishes, but other than that I think that just the sheer noise and activity level left me feeling worn out.  The boys asked to play outside, which was out of the question as it was 30 below, so they settled for the Lego movie instead.  This means I got to watch them dance like robots and sing "Everything is Awesome" for 2 hours.  Also the dog was practically attached to my side all morning.  

I was hungry mid morning so I made some toast with sunbutter and raisins.  

Like PB&J but not.

I fired up my Vitamix to make broccoli cheese soup for lunch.  I never thought I'd make soup in a blender, but this is super handy for making small portions.  I can make enough for lunch and a portion to take to work instead of making a giant batch and eating it for a year.  I also finished up a quesadilla from dinner the other night (homemade with chicken and veggies).  A weird combo, but it's what I had.  The soup was fantastic.

It's such a vivid shade of green.

After taking the boys to 4k, I booked it home to grab some sleep.  I know that sounds unbelievably lazy, but I had a 3 hour window that needed to be maximized so I wouldn't fall straight into a coma at work.  I did actually sleep, but I had a seriously fucked up lucid dream.  It involved one of the stand-up comics from the ship and the bus he drives for some reason, a stone cottage in Scotland, a few shitty teenage boys, a bunch of tourists and me driving the bus into the ocean.  Fucked. Up.

After I got up I ate a bunch of raspberries.  They were delicious.

I made spaghetti for dinner using the Wildtree spaghetti sauce blend for the first time. It was super easy and really tasty.  The kids actually ate it.  I win.

Spaghetti squash for me.

I actually managed to cook this spaghetti squash without exploding it or severing my hand while preparing it. Lucky day I guess.

I did get on the treader for 3 miles (plus I walked to-and-from school), but they sucked balls because the hormonal shitstorm I suppressed with pills last week is in full force.  Funsies.  Hey, at least I moved around a bit.

Back in the salt mine for a 7 day stint.  Gotta make that money.

Blogging 2015: 205.5 down, 1809.5 to go

Back in the swing of things today.  I didn't make it to the box, which was my own stupid fault as I lazed around in bed until 6am.  I just got so used to sleeping in until 7am last week...it's hard to shake. Also hard to shake is indiscriminate eating.  I put on weight while we were gone, not sure exactly how much, but I'm feeling heavy and sluggish.  Starting over at zero sucks. Ah well.  I've got months before I have to retire my sweatpants.  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

Got up and did some laundry after breakfast.

Dullsville.

I did kid laundry and my own laundry this morning. I can't begin to describe how sad it was to see all my vacation clothes hanging in the laundry room, knowing they won't see the light of day for another couple of years.  Turns out I own a shitload of strapless dresses.  What can I say?  I have nice shoulders and a big ass tattoo that I like to show off.  

I had a bowl of unsweetened applesauce with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  I love applesauce.  

Snackin' like a toddler.

I made myself a chocolate cherry almond milk smoothie and split it into 2 portions.  I drank half of it on the way to yoga and saved the rest for later.  I didn't take a picture.  It was in a jar...does that help?  Yoga was core focused today and the instructor had several new and horrible movements to try.  She's creative, I'll give her that.

After yoga, fantastic husband and I went out for lunch and then to Costco.  We had Panda House, and yes I pretty much ate it all.  It was delicious.  I don't remember the last time I had non-homemade Chinese. There was a fuckload of celery in this.  I'm not a fan of celery.  It makes the tip of my tongue numb.  

Cashew chicken.

Got off cheap at Costco, especially since we had a huge cartload of stuff.  I really wanted a 13# box of oranges, but husband says we have to eat up the clementines in the fridge first.  Dream killer.  We did get these enormous grapes-seriously, they are the size of plums.  I'm a little weirded out, but they taste pretty good.  All the other grapes looked like they'd partially frozen in transit.  So sad.  We also bought a pineapple and as we were loading up the car with our discount bulk booty, I looked over at it sitting in the kid seat portion of the cart and was struck by the absurdity of it.  It's 10 degrees below zero and I'm loading a pineapple into my car.  Look how rich I am!  I bring the tropical fruits home in the dead of winter! 

I had the second half of my smoothie later in the afternoon.  Not because I was hungry.  Because chocolate.

I also ate, in no particular order, a Babybel cheese, a handful of raisins, and 2 ponczkas.  

So I guess it's Lent or something?  Being non-Christian I don't really keep track of the church calendar like I did when I was in Lutheran school and there were quizzes on such things.  And along with Lent goes Fat Tuesday and ponczkas.  My husband makes exactly one batch of these Polish donuts exactly once a year, on the Tuesday before Lent.  He makes his Busha's recipe. These are still hot from frying, we shake them in a bag of sugar and I'm pretty sure I saw the face of God.  But probably not.  These are so good.  They tear my guts apart and I don't care. I fucking love donuts.  Especially fresh ones.

Oh, the fried fatty goodness.

I got out of the habit of photographing my food while on vacay.  I need to start again for accountability's sake.  Dinner was Chipotle Lime pork chops and roasted asparagus.  Pretty good.  Nothing too interesting.

Charlie: I don't want any of that green stuff on my plate.

Me: Why?

Charlie: I don't like it.

Me: You don't even know what it's called, you don't get to say you don't like it.

Charlie: I don't need to know to know that I know.

After dinner fantastic husband went out for his last basketball game of the year, so I speed washed the spawn, cut down their nasty talons (how do their finger and toenails get so long and hideously dirty so fast?) and headed downstairs for a little treadmill time.  I forgot to take a selfie, but I did 5 miles and since I walked back and forth to school with the kids earlier I had 5.5 for today.  I did take a dog selfie afterwards, though, because this dog is ridiculous.  She spent a week boarding at Golrusk and went to Fun Camp every day where she ran around so much that she was skin and bones when we picked her up even though she ate her food twice a day.  We are now in the process of feeding her many fatty snacks and keeping her extra activity low so she fattens up a bit. She was sitting totally normally with me until I got the camera, then it was Cover Girl time, apparently.

I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille

Tomorrow I go back on at work, which reminds me I need to enter my PTO so I get paid.  Better do that now.  I need to get paid.  I know I'll be running tomorrow, everything else is up in the air.  I hope like hell I can get a nap.  

I also hope I remember all my passwords at work.

Blogging 2015: 200 down, 1815 to go (the vacation post)

We're finally back from vacation.  We were technically back on Sunday night, but since our stuff wasn't back and there was quite a bit of running around to do on Monday I didn't feel like life was getting back to normal until today.  I just finished making the monthly menu and a shopping list and doing a load of laundry, so I guess now I'm officially back in the game.

First things first.  Last Saturday was the Ice Bowl at CFGB and I went straight there after working all night. I got a nifty t-shirt to wear...that I vanity sized and ended up with an overly tight fit.  oops.

It was alarming. I'm sorry people had to see this.

The format was a bit different this year and we had a lot more space to stage stuff.  The day went by insanely fast, and by 5pm when I was hitting that "I've been awake for 30+ hours" state things were wrapping up.  I made it home and managed to stay awake until about 7pm, but that's all I had.  I was asleep right away, so the 4am wakeup call was no big deal.

The trip to Puerto Rico was completely uneventful, which is unusual.  We almost always have some kind of bizarre travel issue.  Mechanical problems, weather delays, lost luggage, bad turbulence (fantastic husband gets motion sick), missed connections etc.  This time we landed exactly on time, got our shuttle, and were on the ship with minimal fuss.  We had a balcony room, which is pretty nice, and our luggage even made it up to us without anything missing.  Woot.

We went up to the Lido deck to meet up with the rest of our group.  I had an umbrella drink, because vacation.

Drinks taste better with umbrellas. It's science.

We'd had breakfast in Chicago, but really nothing to eat after that so we hit the buffet when we got on the ship.  Unfortunately, the group wanted to go to dinner not too long after that so I was faced with 2 meals in rapid succession.  I didn't eat all that much at the second go, but holy shit was I overly full and ready to explode afterwards.  Add to this the residual sleepiness from being up so long the previous day and I called it a fairly early night.

A little tidbit about me.  I'm a constipated traveler.  I'm like Amy Farrah Fowler-the ideal hotel roommate. My guts know I'm about to travel and they shut the fuck down.  I've combated this in the past by taking docusate beginning a few days before travelling. Last cruise that worked pretty handily.  This time...not. My 2 meals-in-three-hours hit a brick wall in my colon.  For the next few days I wasn't able to eat more than a few bites at a time without feeling sick.  I ultimately resorted to purchasing bisacodyl in the ship's store on Tuesday.  By the time it took effect I'd been at an ummm....standstill for 8 days.  After I got the "result" eveything went back to not functioning again until Monday.  At which point I made 4 trips to the bathroom in 4 hours.  Am I the only person this happens to?  I can't be, or the cruise line wouldn't put prunes on the buffet every morning.  Incidentally, I ate about a million prunes and nothing.  

Monday we anchored in St. Thomas and our group went to a place called Honeymoon Beach on Water Island.  We checked out an abandoned WWII bunker and then got drunk on the beach for a while.  The beach was gorgeous and had a great swimming area.  I swam, I drank, I swam and drank some more.

Bunker.  Dark and creepy.

Top of the bunker selfie.  

The old fashioned way-blindly with arm extended.

This drink is called a Painkiller.  It was highly effective.

This place was a pretty good painkiller as well.

Look how not in pain I am.

I took a little nap on the ferry dock.  We had to wait for a while and I was drunk.  See this white swim suit top?  I love it.  It makes my tits look fantastic.  It became extremely stained from sunscreen.  I have no idea how to get this out.  I just took it out of the laundry and it looks like shit...all yellowy-brown at the edges where it came into contact with my skin/sunblock.  I am beyond sad.

Tuesday was a day at sea.  Fantastic husband spent a lot of it down with seasickness.  I napped, read a book, got some sun.  You know.  Cruise ship shit.  

Wednesday was Barbados.  Our surfing excursion!  I don't have any pictures of the actual surfing, because we went down the beach a ways and it wasn't camera conducive.  Fantastic husband actually surfed.  He was able to stand up and ride waves in on several occasions.  I was able to get up into a crouch several times and stood up twice.  Then I became so surprised at my success that I freaked out and fell over.  We went to a place called Barry's Surf School.

See?

They picked us up at the cruise terminal in the oldest truck I've ever seen.  The kid who picked us up (Jordan) was island raised by an English army brat father and an American army brat mother.  He was super friendly and managed to not kill us driving the world's oldest truck over the world's narrowest, shittiest roads.

A note about the Caribbean?  The roads are atrocious. The cars are either these space aged looking models you never see in the states or the oldest, shittiest, rustiest cars ever.  There are car husks and random parts everywhere and tire (or tyre if it's a British island) shops every 60 feet.  That is not an exaggeration.  I'm assuming there's just a) nowhere to go with old cars and b) a huge need for tires/tyres because of the craptastic roads.  The beaches are beautiful.  Everything else is....peeling.

The surfing was really fun and pretty strenuous.  Afterwards we walked down the street a bit for some lunch and a couple of local beers.

I always try to drink the local beer.

Then we went back to the beach and crashed for a bit.

Motherfucking palm trees.

When you take a cruise and get off in port, they tell you when you need to be back on board.  In Barbados there were 5 people that were late.  The cruise terminal is huge, and it's a major hike from the outside to the gangway.  The last people walked the 400m or so along the ship with a crowd of screaming, jeering drunks hanging off their balconies.  If ever I needed a reminder to not be late back to the ship, I got it in Barbados.

I'd like to see other parts of Barbados than just Bridgetown.  Bridgetown was, well, kind of ugly.  The beaches were pink sand covered impossible blue watered sea turtle spotting beautiful.  The town was crappy house surrounded empty storefront peeling paint and potholes.  Port towns in my experience are pretty ugly, especially around the port itself (abandoned warehouses anyone?) and I expect it, but it's still a little disappointing.

Thursday we were in St. Lucia.  We booked a private tour to Gros Piton for a hike to the top.  The drive from Castries to the mountain is long, even though it's not very far, but we got to see a lot of the island.  The roads are nicer on St. Lucia, and I bet they'd be a scream to drive as they are up and down windy awesome. The hike up and down the mountain is supposed to take about 4-5 hours.  We didn't start until about 10am and it was HOT.  The trail was straight up and more like a rock staircase than a trail.  The scenery was beautiful, but I called it at halfway up.

That's Petite Piton behind me.

Fantastic husband tried to press on, but the next section of trail was just too much in the heat.  We'll go back one day and start at sunrise so we can be on the way down before the heat of the day.  The guide said that about 30% of people who start up the trail turn back right outside the village once they realize what they're up against.  Here's a few shots of the "easy" section of the trail.

Do you see the trail?

How about now?

I will hike to the top of that bitch one day.

When we left St. Lucia the ship did some "maneuvers" before we headed out to sea.  This means basically that the damn thing spun circles for a couple of hours.  Literally spun in circles.  Our dining room was way in the back of the boat and full of windows.  The engines are right under it, which means that the dining room was not only vibrating but spinning.  I don't get motion sick, so I didn't care aside from the noise, which was irritating and not exactly dinner conversation inducing...but fantastic husband had to leave dinner.  Not cool, Carnival.

Friday we were in St. Kitt's (ie St. Christoper and Nevis).  Apparently Alexander Hamilton was born on Nevis and Thomas Jefferson's great, great, great grandfather owned a plantation on St. Kitt's.  History and shit.

Nevis from our balcony as we came into port.

We did 3 things on St. Kitt's.  We went to Caribelle Batik on Romney Plantation, then to Brimstone Fortress, then to the beach for a flap in the ocean.  The tour was run by a man who looked and sounded like a thinner Morgan Freeman.  If you're going to run a tour company, you should definitely sound like Morgan Freeman.

Brimstone fortress.

Batik fabric drying on the line.

The belltower at Romney Plantation.

I like to know the history of places. I read all sorts of random histories for fun, because I am lame. So when tours combine scenery with history I like them better.  The fortress on St. Kitt's dates back more than 300 years and a lot of the original stonework remains.  There are some exhibits there that outline the history of the fort and it's construction.  That combined with seeing the old sugar works at Romney house and the bell tower...they made me feel slightly uncomfortable.  All that stuff was built on the backs of slaves.  In fact, pretty much everything in the Caribbean was built by forced/captured labor.  The Arawaks and the Kalinago are pretty much gone-in fact the Kalinago (Caribs) are on a reservation. Colonialism completely altered the face of the Caribbean.  I'm not sure why that makes me feel so shitty.  After all, my ancestors weren't slavers. I'm not British, Dutch, French, Spanish, or Portuguese.  If anything my forebears were indentured servants and shopkeepers, but I still feel yucky when I think about how all that stuff came to be. White guilt, anyone?

We made one last stop on our tour before heading back to the ship.  The tour guide had us all tell him where we're from and something about ourselves.  I mentioned that fantastic husband is a firefighter/paramedic, so we got to stop at the firehouse on the way "home".

Look at the tiny ambulance!

Kittian firefighters.

Lucky us, the ship spun circles again off St. Kitt's.  At least the second night they warned us.  They also didn't start the spinning until about halfway through dinner so fantastic husband at least got to eat.  I don't get the spinning.  I'm sure it serves some training purpose, but every cruise I've ever taken is peopled with men and women sporting Trans-Scop patches (scopolamine for motion sickness).  I heard plenty of people discussing taking Dramamine to combat motion sickness each night.  If you have 3,000 people aboard and say 50% of them get at least a little sea sick...should you be spinning the fucking ship at dinnertime?

The final stop was St. Maarten/St. Martin.  We docked on the Dutch side and spent a large part of the day on the French side.  First we went to Orient Beach.  Orient Beach is beautiful.  Turquoise water, white sand, the works.  It's also topless on one side of a rock jette and nude on the other.  I didn't go topless with the group, because frankly some of our party were Judgy McJudgersons and I didn't feel like dealing with that for the remainder of the trip.  However, being Judgy McJudgersons they weren't going to go to the nude side.  When fantastic husband teasingly said "Wanna go check out the rest of the beach?" I said "Hell yes" so we walked over the rock wall, stripped down and swam naked in the ocean.  We saw a bunch of yellow and black striped fish...the water was so clear that no snorkel was required!

It was fucking fantastic. There were people of all ages, shapes, and sizes just letting it all hang out.  Sitting in beach chairs reading books, sleeping, eating sandwiches, snorkeling, swimming...like it was completely normal.  And it was.  Completely normal.  No adjustment period at all.  I didn't give a rats ass what any of them looked like, and once I was out of my suit I was completely comfortable in my own body.  Maybe because I didn't know anyone?  I don't know.  I just know that it wasn't a big deal at all and I'm so glad I did it.  I even got to sleep in the sun.  Best part of nude swimming?  No yucky wet swimsuit to deal with afterwards.  It was also really fucking funny to watch a tour bus vomit big white Midwesterners onto the nude side of the beach.  They all did the same thing.  Walk down the beach gawking and blushing then hustle back onto the bus.  

Can you imagine a nude beach in the Midwest?  People's heads would explode.  

After Orient Beach we went to the Marigot French market and had a little lunch and bought a souvenir or two, then headed over to Maho Bay which is right at the end of the airport runway.  All that separates you from the planes is a short fence and a narrow road.  The surf is crazy at Maho.  I got tossed around and my suit filled with so much sand that I'm still washing it out of places.

Before I got my ass tossed by a wave.

After the toss with a plane.  

There is no way to describe the amount of sand in my hair.

The person in the water on the far left is fantastic husband.

When a plane takes off, people hold onto the fence and get blown back.  If you're on the top of the beach you get blasted with so much sand it feels like your skin is being peeled off.  Bizarre.  I'd recommend going once, but I don't need to go again!

When we left St. Maarten the sea was rough so fantastic husband had another difficult night at dinner.  Here we are before dinner-matchy match for Valentine's Day.  I even carried a Valentine card all the way from home because I am a great wife. 

Still a shitload of sand in my hair here.

He did rally after dinner for a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity and the stand up comedy show.  

Sunday we got off the ship as planned, to the airport as planned, then spent TWO FUCKING HOURS in line to hand over our bags and print boarding passes.  I had checked in and paid online.  It took us less than a minute to complete our transaction at the kiosk after standing in line for TWO HOURS.  I have a few airport peeves.  A couple are on the airline.  Have enough goddamn counter agents to deal with the flights you have scheduled. If there's a few big ass planes going from San Juan to Chicago?  Maybe have more than 2 people at the counter while they're all checking in.  Also maybe make sure all your kiosks are in working order and have someone directing the line to the next available kiosk. It can be hard to see them when you're way the fuck down at the end and there's a see of people and luggage in the way.  A couple are on the travelers.  For the love of little baby dolphins learn to use a kiosk. It is 20fucking15 how are you still holding a sheaf of paper and insisting on a person to print your boarding passes.  See that computer screen that is at your eye level?  The one that stays PRESS HERE TO START in all caps?  Maybe you could, I don't know, PRESS THERE TO MOTHERFUCKING START.  You don't even need to know your reservation number anymore!  Just your goddamn name!  You know your goddamn name, right?  No?  BACK OF THE LINE.

I'm also peeved at wheelchair cutters.  I'm not talking about people that are legitimately handicapped and require assistance beyond what their spouses/kids can provide.  I'm talking about people who are just old so use a chair to take the pressure off old hips and knees.  By all means, use the chair, seriously I have no issue there.  The issue I have is you going to the front of the line while I wait even longer because invariably these passengers also fall into the "Kiosk? What is this kiosk?" category.  Get in line.  YOU ARE ALREADY SITTING DOWN.  

I actually did a very good job of not becoming agitated while in line until we were right up on the counter and there were four open kiosks and a bunch of fucking people standing in line completely ignoring them.  Go to the kiosk, idiot.  You can do all your shit from the kiosk.  Go to the kiosk before I cut you.

Our flight was overbooked (of course it was) so we wasted a bunch of time while they looked for volunteers with ever increasing voucher numbers plus free hotel and transportation.  They got them, then we left.  In O'Hare everything was going swimmingly until they cancelled our flight to GB.  Because the wind changed. So we said fuck it and rented a car and drove home.

Monday I had to return the rental, retrieve our bags, get fantastic husband's car and play car shuffle.  Imagine my delight at being home again.

Sigh.

At least the bags showed up and everything made it intact.  Oh, the parking thingy broke as I was leaving the airport which was the final "fuck you" of our trip home.  I'm glad we drove home, though, because the flight they rebooked us on didn't actually land in GB until after noon on Monday and I had to volunteer at the boys' school at 1:30pm.  

So that's our vacation in a nutshell.  It was very relaxing until the last 12 hours or so.  We got to see and do some neat stuff, got some sun, and a much needed break from the daily grind.  Tonight I'll go to yoga and probably the box tomorrow to try to get back in the swing of things.  For all that we were quite active and I didn't feel like I went overboard with food, I'm up a few pounds (plenty of which is water) and that's frustrating.  Whatever.  It is what it is.  Whenever I feel shitty about myself I'm going to remember how great I felt on that nude beach and try to recapture that sense of peace with my body.  Maybe it'll work.

Back in the studio, back to the box, then back to work on Thursday.  I'm already losing my buzz. 

Blast.

Blogging 2015: Some mileage down, significantly more to go

Holy shit I've been busy the last couple of days.  Working, packing, cleaning, laundry, etc etc etc.  I did sleep, but not very much, so today is going to be interesting to say the least.

Look out, Ice Bowl!  I'm overtired and caffeinated!

If this thing actually wraps up at 4:30pm (HA!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) I might make it home into bed by 8.  That would be a goddamn miracle.

Flight out at 0600 on Sunday.

Depending on the cost of wifi on board ship, I may be MIA until 2/16.  I can feel your disappointment.  Try not to miss me too much.

Blogging 2015: 165 down, 1850 to go

My mileage has slowed down a bit, but it's cool, there's a lot of year left and racing season hasn't started yet. Today was another crazy run here and run there kind of day, you know the kind you have before you travel. When you're desperately afraid you're going to forget something critical like a toothbrush or pajamas.

No, I still haven't packed.

Yes, we found our (in date) passports.

This morning I considered just staying home and cleaning, but instead I went to the box because the workout was comprised of some of my favorite things.  Light deadlifts, box jumps, and running.  I did the workout RX, which is a BFD in the CrossFit world because it means I didn't have to modify or scale anything. On any given day I have to scale something in the workout.  Maybe it's a lighter weight on the bar, or using abmats under my head to shorten the traverse on a handstand push-up, or a band for pull-ups, etc.  Today I could do every movement as indicated, and I did.  I was a happy camper.  I took a picture of the whiteboard, but my pictures didn't load to Google drive so too bad for you.

Breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal with applesauce and honey.  On the way to the box I had the remainder of yesterday's chocolate cherry smoothie.

Then I came home and slept for a bit, then went to Aveda for a bikini wax.  I've never found the process to be particularly painful, but the wax lady kept telling me that it would be.  I was tempted to glare at her from narrowed eyes and hiss "You don't know pain" but I resisted.  Seriously, I broke my goddamn leg running across a rugby pitch and walked around on that motherfucker for a day and a half thinking it was just a sprain.  Wax does not frighten me.

After my appointment I came home and gave myself a manicure, then went to a work related social event with my husband.  He has to trot me out at social functions every few years so that people believe I exist. I hate parties.  Especially parties where everyone is basically a stranger.  I just sort of want to sink into the floor.  I never know what to say to people, and small talk feels unbelievably stilted and fake coming out of my face.  I couldn't even drink to soften the blow because I had to work.  At least now I'm paid up for a bit and I can avoid future soirees for at least another 2 years.

So that was today.  Exciting stuff, yes?

I can't wait to go home and sleep.

Blogging 2015: 164 down, 1851 to go

I turned down an OT shift tonight.  I felt a little guilty, but I had a legit reason.  It's fantastic husband's workday and CPS frowns on leaving small children alone overnight.

I got everyone up and squared away this morning, lunch made for the girl child etc and fortunately that went reasonably well.  There was the requisite 60 minutes of random bitching, but it didn't make me want to leap off a bridge today.  Probably because I got 11 hours of sleep last night, with only one interruption.  Now, that interruption scared the shit out of me, but it was only one.

Have you ever been dead asleep when your kid started wailing?  I mean you're sleeping like a stone cold corpse when a small child begins shrieking like he's being murdered by a clown? I came to in a five alarm panic.  I'd been asleep for about 3 hours and was deep in delta-wave land.  I think I was out of bed and running down the hall before my eyes were open.  When I reached the boys room, there was a small human sitting in the doorway in full on lotus position.  I swear I thought I was hallucinating.  I was completely disoriented, heart racing, and I may have shouted at him "What is happening right now?!? What is going on?" To which the small yogi replied "My foot hurts."

My foot hurts. This was the thing that caused him to keen from the bowels of hell.  You know why his foot hurts?  Because he sleeps in bed with 107 stuffed toys and ends up contorted into a pretzel which puts his foot or leg to sleep.  Then he shifts position and the pins and needles wake him up.

I've been through this drill often enough not to argue.  I usually give him some kind of bullshit placebo and put him back to bed.  Last night I said "Ok, I'll get you some medicine." Then I ran into the baby gate at the top of the stairs, tripped and fell to the landing, stumbled through the kitchen and knocked about six things out of the medicine cabinet, poured him a dose of Tylenol because I didn't have the wherewithal to give him gripe water or simethicone or what have you, almost spilled it on the way back up the stairs and handed it to the small yogi who decided that Tylenol is best enjoyed sipped like a fine cognac.  Then he handed me the medicine cup, popped up from the floor, hugged my knees and got back into bed.

What the everliving fuck.  

I was so jacked up that I ended up watching TV for a half hour before I could fall back to sleep.  I should mention that through all of this, the wailing, the shouting, the stumbling, lights on, lights off...my other son did not wake up.  He did not so much as stir.  That has to be a twin thing.

So once the spawn were off to school, I came home to have breakfast with the dog.  I finished up a loaf of Ezekiel bread from the freezer with a little sunbutter and honey.  Good stuff.

Mmmm.  Carby.

I went to the box for 9:15.  More double unders.  I'm kind of proud of myself for doing 2 DU workouts this week, ordinarily I'd cherry pick the shit out of DU workouts.  Today is was 3 rounds of 25 DUs and some other stuff. Scaled to 1 minute DU practice.  I got 5 each round.  The first round they were even consecutive.  Woo!  I had intended to go to yoga afterwards, but unfortunately I'd misremembered the timing of my haircut so I didn't yoga today.  I got my hair cut and colored so that operation grow-out can continue without my looking like a damn slob.  Luckily my hair person is a CrossFit friend so she wasn't grossed out by my sweaty-ass hair.  I did bring her coffee as an apology.  I then went to Dick's Sporting Goods in my ongoing quest for a sweatpants based wardrobe.  Tons of stuff on sale there, I could've done some serious damage.  

Oh, after CF I had a chocolate cherry oatmeal smoothie.  The other half is still in the fridge. I'll probably have it for breakfast tomorrow.

It's a damn shake!

After all that I came home and grabbed the dog.  We went out for 3 miles...she dragged me I mean.  It's amazing how much force a 40 pound dog can generate.  I swear she could pull my car.  I didn't really have much for lunch, just a little ham 'n cheese.

This Kirkland ham is fantastic. I will totally buy it again.

I made a Target run for Valentine's Day cards for the kids.  The boys had to make a card box and cards which all have to be at school no later than Monday.  Since we're going to be gone, I had them do it tonight so we can take them tomorrow.  They got a big kick out of making the boxes, and they wrote their names so nicely.  It took about 20 minutes from start to finish.  I was impressed.  We had breakfast for dinner since it's easy and quick.

Gotta have bacon at least once a day, right?

I've been seeing ads for red velvet Oreos for the last week or so.  Fantastic husband expressed interest in trying them, so I bought a little package at Target today.  The kids tried them for dessert since they ate their dinners nicely.  They all liked them.  I refuse to try them.  For one thing, what is the big deal about red velvet?  It's seriously chocolate cake with red dye.  I know.  I've made red velvet from scratch.  Is it the cream cheese frosting?  Is that what the draw is?  Because you can put that shit on anything...it doesn't have to be red.  Anyway, here's what they look like.

Yuck.

They are fucking brown.  They look like what I imagine regular Oreos would look like if they got rusty. There is no way I'm putting that in my mouth.  

So much to do in the next few days before vacation.  Like packing.  At some point I'm going to have to do that.  Actually, I should find my passport first, because if I can't find that there's no point in packing.

I am a responsible adult.  No really, I am.