Discouraged

Lately, it seems as though as soon as I blog about something, it turns to shit.

Take, for instance, my valiant effort at taking up some good exercise--and attempting to learn to love running in the process--with my foray into a C25K program. I posted this after running Week 2, Day 2, and I was doing well. I was getting through the workouts fairly easily. I was *gasp* actually enjoying myself a bit. I felt good.

But in the days after, I noticed that my knees were doing a little bit of screaming as I tried to do simple things. You know, like run up the stairs, squat, or... walk. I dismissed it as a bit of soreness since I've never been a runner. I decided to soldier on, but during that Week 2, Day 3 run, I was hurting pretty badly. I questioned whether I could make it through, but I did. Then I waited a few days (with still sore knees), and completed Week 3, Day 1.

My knees were not happy with me.

I reached out to some friends who are runners and asked if this was normal, if it was a sign of my poor knees being out of shape. They all pointed to my sneakers, asking if I had good ones (I don't). They also advised that I NOT run through the pain, as I would likely just make it worse.

So, I stopped. My (old, unsupportive) sneakers have been neglected for the past few weeks as I try to let my knees heal before starting back up again. I've been shopping--visited a Fleet Feet to get fitted for good sneakers, even--and found out that like a lot of people, my arch collapses under the pressure of my body weight, so I need a more supportive sneaker to help absorb the shock of running. I haven't made the commitment and bought a pair yet--I'm still gawking a little over the $100 price tags (I'm more the "find-$40-sneakers-on-clearance" type of girl).

Before I give up on running completely, I do want to give it another try--so it sounds like I'll have to bite the bullet for some good sneakers. Otherwise, I guess it'll be strictly walking for me, and we'll eventually get an elliptical machine for our basement. I have a hard time believing it is my knees, even though they have given me a few issues throughout my life. I used to do kickboxing and step aerobics (hard on your knees!) classes twice a week and my instructor was the master of jumping lunges, so it's not like my knees have never taken any abuse.

Let's hope new sneakers do the trick.

On a completely separate but equally suck-tastic note, I posted last week about my adventures in square foot gardening. I had been working hard for over a month on this venture, watering, watching, waiting, anticipating. I was so proud and happy to show off my bountiful plants, and all of my baby tomatoes and peppers.

Yeah, well, apparently rabbits and/or squirrels read my blog, because they found my bounty and they STOLE IT ALL. I'm serious, I do not have a single baby ANYTHING on my plants any longer. These rodents PICKED.IT.CLEAN.

I very nearly cried, I'm not going to lie.

So, I don't know what to do. I think the tomato plants will keep producing--they have a number of flower buds left on them at this point--and my zucchini and cucumbers have yet to produce anything yet anyway. My zucchini plants seem to have grown so tall that they are keeling over under their own weight (two of them are now lying on their sides), but I'm hoping that this is normal?

Whoever the culprit is has also been munching on my broccoli leaves, but I guess we'll see what happens there because I'm still not seeing anything resembling actual broccoli coming from them. But my red pepper plant? There is basically nothing left on that guy. He was only producing one pepper anyway, and now he has nothing. Not even any flower buds or shoots that look like they will result in buds. Nothing.

I wonder: what can be done at this point? I am contemplating replanting a few things, but it's mid-July, will they have time to produce before it's too late into the fall? Also, it's clear that I need to build some sort of fence around this thing, but I'm struggling with what exactly to use that will keep both rabbits AND squirrels out--AND give me access to the beds if I need. Until I figure that out, I've been sprinkling everything with cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and/or cayenne pepper to try to deter the little f-ers.

I also put out a pie plate full of water, which sounds ludicrous, but I read that during particularly dry weather--which we've been experiencing, we haven't even mowed our lawn in 2+ weeks!--the rabbits and squirrels will actually steal veggies not because they are hungry, but because they are thirsty. On one of the gardening forums I came across, they suggested that if you provide water, they might be so inclined to leave the veggies alone. Here's hoping. It seems to make sense, since I went so long without them bothering anything, and now they raid the garden like its their job.

So these are my two latest failures in life. I'm trying not to let them get me down! Hopefully I will emerge victorious--with both a completed 5K and a boatload of homegrown vegetables--by fall.

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C25K

I've been a fairly active person throughout my adult life (after college). I was never a gym rat in any sense of the term, but I was in decent shape at least. Michael and I used to go to the gym a few times during the week--I took step aerobics and kickboxing classes--and on the weekends. I felt pretty good about my fitness level. I started taking spinning classes to try them out...

...and then I got pregnant.

When I was seven weeks pregnant, I started having some bleeding problems. I pretty much had them all the way up into my second trimester, and it was always a bit unsettling. When it first started, my doctor suggested that I give spinning a rest, so I quit the class. And since it was the dead of winter and I was in my exhausting first trimester anyway, I didn't have any issues becoming a bit sedentary for a while.

But as I reached the second trimester, the weather was just beginning to improve, and I began walking. Long walks with Tessa that I enjoyed thoroughly. And then Michael began joining me, and from then on, we walked nearly every evening after dinner, about 3 miles. All throughout the spring, the summer... it was routine. And even as I grew hugely pregnant, it still felt really good to get out and walk. I was in good shape going into labor, and all was good.

Then Nora was born, and well, priorities shifted. Majorly.

I give major credit to people who have small children and still maintain a course of regular exercise. Gym time? I still cannot fathom it. Working full time with a child makes life a bit of a whirlwind--we rush home from work, work quickly to get dinner on the table, and bathtime--all before she goes to bed at 7:00. It's mad dash. And when she's in bed? Well, that's time for everything else we need to do. Dishes, cleaning, laundry, home improvement projects, and hey... some relaxing.

My weight is absolutely fine. My fitness? Not so much.

I've been wanting to get back into something, but didn't want to go back to the gym. Walking is still good and I would do it, but since we can't go together anymore (after Nora's sleeping), it seemed pretty boring.

Enter C25K. That's Couch-to-5K, for those who may be unfamiliar. It's a training program to take you from being basically a couch potato to being able to run a 5K.

Let me preface this by saying I AM NOT A RUNNER. I hate running, in fact. But so many runners kept telling me that they started with something like C25K and that it made them looooove running. I'm not convinced, but I committed to giving it a try.

I started by downloading an app on my iPhone. Specifically, "C25K Free" (shown below):

The way the program works is this: You run three days per week. The running is done in intervals--walk, run, walk, run, repeat several times until you've reached 30+ minutes of total activity. The intervals start off pretty easy, with 1 minute of running, then 1.5 minutes of walking during Week 1. Then, they gradually work their way up to be longer periods of running and less walking, until you complete 8 weeks and can supposedly run a full 5K.

The nice thing about the app is that it prompts you when to begin running and walking so that you don't have to be watching the clock. I downloaded some music onto my iPhone from my iTunes, and the app will automatically quiet the music for a moment to speak over it to give me my prompts.

Now, I've only completed through Week 2 Day 2 at this point (Week 2 Day 3 is next), but I have to say... I'm liking it so far. Do I love running? No. At least not yet. But I do feel pretty good when I'm doing it, and afterward, so there are positives. And 30ish minutes three times a week is not too much to ask.

On nights when it works out, Michael and Nora have actually come with me. Michael walks/runs next to me with Nora in the jogging stroller and it's nice to get out and enjoy a little bit of the nice evening weather with them. We can only do this when we have something SUPER simple (like leftovers or sandwiches) planned for dinner, and when Nora is in a decent mood, but it's something.

I hope to continue through the summer and into the fall--by then, I'll hopefully have accomplished the 5K goal, and hopefully I'll have become "addicted" to running. I'm still very much a skeptic about that, but we'll see how it goes.

By winter, we hope to have our basement in order and we have plans to buy a treadmill.

I'm prepared to put some miles on these shoes!

Those with kids: What do you do for exercise? Do you find it to be as challenging to work into your schedule as I do? For everyone: Are you currently challenging yourself in some way when it comes to your fitness? Have you ever done a C25K program before? If so, were you successful in completing it? Did it make you love running (like everyone says)? Were you able to keep it up after the program was over?

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Ketchup Day

We only went away for three days, but I feel like I've been running myself ragged this week just trying to "catch up" from being gone--at work, at home, and on my blog. I'm doing OK, but I find that I can't organize my thoughts enough or concentrate on one thing long enough to put together a coherent blog post.

Instead, this will jump around quite a bit, with a little of everything! Get ready to read some of the thoughts rolling around in my head, none of which are really worthy of individual posts.
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At this point, I'm happy to say that with this post, I am officially caught up on my blog. For now. I intended to blog from Chicago since our hotel had free internet access, but every night, I just wanted to relax. Looking back, I can't believe I managed to blog every day of our honeymoon last year. At the time, it didn't even seem like a big deal, and it's not like it really took that much time.

Who was that Heather? I'd like to have her back.
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One thing I failed to mention about Chicago... it's currently in the running to host the Summer Olympics in 2016. I had no idea until we were visiting and I saw all of the advertisements everywhere, and also heard about it on the city's local news.

But how AWESOME would that be??

I can't imagine a better city to serve as host. The other candidate cities are Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. I don't know how good Chicago's chances are, but if it does get chosen, I'll go ahead and say right now that we would seriously be looking into making a trip to the Olympics.

Not only do I love Chicago, but I loooooove the Olympics. The final selection will be made on October 2. I'm anxious to see what happens.
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The day before we left for Chicago, I did a "portfolio building" photo session with a coworker's son. "Porfolio building" = I offered to do it for free. It went really well, and I've spent the last few nights furiously editing the photos to put together a little collage to display at her son's first birthday (totally cute for my coworker and her family, and totally awesome advertising for me).

Speaking of his first birthday... this same coworker has hired me to photograph the birthday party. I'm still only charging about half of what I probably should be charging, but since I'm just starting out, I'm feeling OK about that. At this point, I'm just excited that people actually want to hire me.

Speaking of HIRING me... I actually have a second paid photo session on Saturday morning. It's to take photos of my friend's son. So Saturday's going to be busy! I have to do his session in the morning, then head over to photograph the coworker's son's big birthday in the afternoon. Fun, fun!

I'm working hard and getting excited about the payoff I'm starting to see. I'm afraid to dream too big, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for me...
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My aerobics classes started up again on Monday night. Well, actually, kickboxing started on Thursday, but I had to skip it since we were flying to Chicago. I'm back on my schedule of step on Monday nights and kickboxing on Thursdays (and regular ol' gym on the weekends, as time permits). So last night was my first class, and wow, it was nice to get back into it. It's nice to have a break over the summer, but I always sort of want to kick my own ass once I realize how much I've let my fitness level slide in those 2.5 months off. Stupid. But the good news is that I'm really not all that sore, so I might not be in as bad shape as I thought. Thank you, 30 Day Shred.

Since I brought that up, I feel the need to confess that I stopped doing The Shred the second week in August. I'm seriously not cut out for DVD workouts. Yes, 20 minute workouts are appealing. But HOLY CRAP did I get bored with it. Sure, the elliptical is boring as hell, but I keep myself entertained with reading my books. I'd much rather spend 60 minutes reading on the elliptical than spend 20 minutes following along with Jillian Michaels, knowing every word she's going to say before she even says it. Knowing the workout by heart made it seem impossibly and torturously long.

The good thing is that I felt so guilty for giving up the 30 Day Shred that I actually started going to the gym more often. Funny how that works.
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Now that our weekend in Chicago has come and gone, this is the first time in over a year that we have not had our next vacation already planned. We've done quite a bit of traveling over these past 15 months of marriage. First came Hawaii, then Charlotte, then Vegas, then Seattle and San Francisco, and finally Chicago. Since I'm a planner by nature, we always had the "next" thing planned. Now? Nothing. It's a weird feeling, and I'm not sure I like it. Since we got married, I've liked always having a trip to look forward to.

We'd like to remedy this by planning our next vacation, but there seem to be a lot of variables. Mainly, where do we want to go? And when? We have quite a few places on our "list," but we're sort of having trouble prioritizing. I think some research is in order.
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I'm feeling the need to tell you that when I did a Google Image search for "Ketchup Day" for this post, I came across a picture of ketchup cake. I love me some ketchup (like, seriously love) but even I think that ketchup cake is wrong on so many levels. I'm thinking that those crazy, ketchup-loving Canadians must be responsible for that. ;)

Anyway, I think that's enough randomness for one day. But this was actually really fun--perhaps more "Ketchup Days" are in the cards for Heather Drive?

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Shredding

I've finally hopped on the bandwagon.

That's right, folks. I'm talking about the 30 Day Shred.

I intended to buy this DVD sometime back in June, but then all of a sudden, it was July. Whoops. And then July was half over, and I realized that I had been out of my twice-weekly aerobics classes for more than a month already. Um, whoops again.

I don't want to have to start all over with my endurance when I get back into the aerobics classes in the fall, so I needed to do something. I just typically hate going to the gym on weekdays, and the weekends have been super busy, so I thought perhaps Jillian Michaels was the answer. I love her on The Biggest Loser (I would sooo pick her over Bob), so if anyone could kick my ass through my TV screen, I figured it'd be her.

I've never really been a "fitness DVD" type of person, so when I kept reading about how great a workout this is, I was skeptical. Only 25 minutes? And it's a full workout? Really?

But then I saw another person singing its praises. And another. And another. And so on. You get the picture.

So I caved. I bought it.

I started it Monday, so as of now, I've successfully completed three days of the 30 Day Shred. I am on Day 4 (to be completed later today, even though I'm beyond exhausted and would like to just take a nap).

It's working out pretty well so far. It's short enough so that I can actually talk myself into doing it daily, yet it's tough enough to make me feel like I've really done something. Couple the hard work with my 80-degree house and I'm sweating like crazy by the end of it.

Admittedly, I tend to breeze right through the cardio portions. And honestly, I'd be worried if I didn't. I'm accustomed to having my ass kicked for a full hour by my aerobics instructor. You wouldn't know it from looking at her, but my petite little Marcie packs a mean punch. (She even pulled "a Jillian" on us once and yelled, "You can faint, puke, or DIE--but you can't QUIT!" Um, yeah. She's scary.)

On the other hand, I find that most of the strength portions, even where I'm at--Level 1--are quite challenging. Some moves are easier than others. The forward lunges, coupled with bicep curls? Not bad. Again, I'm thanking Marcie and her 1,000 lunges and/or squats per class for that one. But the side lunges with the arm raises? Holy @*$%. Those hurt.

On Tuesday (the morning after Day 1), I was really feeling it in the crooks of my arms. On Wednesday, I still felt it in my arms, but felt a bit sore in my abs and legs, too. Today? I'm feeling pretty damn good, actually. Progress?

I think that for this first 30 days, I'm going to follow the "schedule," and stick with Level 1 for 10 days, then move to Level 2 for 10 days before moving to Level 3 for the final 10 days.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Any fellow "shredders" among my readers? I know you're out there; you can't hide. After all, everyone's doing it, right?

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The Great Outdoors

Today was all about being outside in the absolutely gorgeous weather we are having. All I have to document it is a few crappy cell phone pictures, but bear with me. :)

First, we went on a 17-mile bike ride. This pic is from about the 8.5-mile mark, where we stopped for a water break and turned around to ride back.

On the way back, we stopped for our first frozen custard of the season. I'm a kid at heart--always gotta go for the rainbow sprinkles!

So delicious. I looooove frozen custard. It was melting quickly, though. Right after taking the photo, I had to work on the sides to get it "under control." It's a difficult job, but someone's gotta do it. :)

Once home, we were on our way back outside as soon as we had our bikes stashed in the garage. Next up was a 3.5-mile walk with little Tessa girl. We couldn't leave her inside all day!

All of this activity left me in dire need of a shower and a little rest. My legs were exhausted. After dinner, though, we hit the pavement again and took Tess out for another little walk. We let her off the leash at a nearby school and ran her around the sports fields. She was in Heaven.

We definitely made the most of the sunshine today, that's for sure. The temperatures were perfect, too. Love, love, love this weather.

And love, love, LOVE three-day weekends.

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The Adventures of Heather & Tessa: Downpour

It started off well. I skipped the gym today in favor of enjoying time outside, opting instead to take Tessa for a long walk. When we left the house, it was really nice out. Warm, and even a little bit sunny.

But just as we reached our halfway point, just as we were the furthest away from home we could possibly be while on our route, the skies decided to open up.

At first, it was just a few drops. I didn't think much of it.

Then it started to sprinkle. It actually felt refreshing.

Then? Pretty steady rain. I thought, well, we'll probably be pretty wet by the time we get home. But I continued to listen to my iPod, and figured we'd be fine.

But then things suddenly changed. The wind picked up, and all of a sudden, it started pouring. I was getting pelted in the face with rain, and I had to continually wipe my eyes because I was getting to a point where I was dripping wet.

When we were a little more than half a mile from home, I started to worry about my iPod and BlackBerry. I took out my earbuds and stuffed everything deep down into the pockets of my shorts. And then? We made a run for it.

Part of a shortcut to get home cuts across a school's property, and when we were running down past the school, I started to hear thunder and saw small flashes of lightning. (Oh, and in case you're wondering, it was still teeming rain.) I decided that it probably wasn't a good time to go running across an open field, so I made a quick decision to bolt down toward the school and seek cover under a small overhang by one of the doors.

We waited it out for about 5 minutes, at which point I wasn't hearing much thunder anymore. The rain was still coming down, but not quite as badly as before. And so we ran. And RAN. We took the quickest, most direct route we could, splashing through ginormous puddles and cutting across muddy grass. Don't forget--my little dog is 11 lbs. and has approximately 6-inch legs. But she was a trooper.

When we got home, I couldn't resist taking a few photos and a little video of just how wet we actually were. SOAKED! Completely and utterly soaked (including my knickers!). I actually wringed an impressive amount of water out of my socks, shorts, and t-shirt.

But in the end, my iPod and BlackBerry survived (thankfully!), and we made it home safely. So it was actually kinda fun. It was quite the adventure.

Oh, and for the record? It's no longer raining. And of course it isn't. Why would it be, now that we're inside?

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Afraid. Very afraid.

My aerobics classes start back up again tonight.

Twice a week--a step class on Mondays, and a kickboxing class on Thursdays. They don't offer them throughout the summer, so my last class was actually the Monday before my wedding back in June.

This summer? I've been lazy in terms of exercise. Busy, but otherwise lazy.

So I am scared. My instructor is going to kick my ass tonight; I just know it.

I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to walk correctly (or without pain) for the rest of the week. Ahhh... the joys of exercise.

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