Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Better than expected

So school started yesterday for the kiddo's and things are better than I expected. Last year was filled with the torture of getting them up and ready to go every morning. Whining, complaining, nagging. And that was just from me! This year, different story. I know it's only been 2 mornings, but both mornings, the kids got up on their own, got themselves ready, and even got themselves breakfast this morning. I'm a bit in shock and thinking this can't possibly last the whole week. But in the wee corners of the back of my mind, you know what I'm hoping for! All year baby, all year! I can dream, but I won't hold my breath....

Anyway, today started out with a 3 miler on the treadmill. New shoes haven't arrived yet, so I threw on my old trusty Chinese racewalking shoes. I love them, but they have the support of a ballet slipper. I try to save these for intervals on the track and actual races on the track only. They served me well this morning in a pinch. I am a bit sore, as predicted from the weight workout yesterday, but nothing too noticeable. I wasn't fast on the treadmill, but was consistent throughout the whole workout, keeping the same speed all the way through, and not stopping once.

On the fiber front, I got busy winding skeins of undyed sock yarn from the cones I purchased last month. Gecko yarns won't be hitting Etsy until at least the end of the month as I just haven't had time to devote to winding and dyeing. But when it does open, I will have plenty of great colorways to offer. I'm almost done winding the 20 or so skeins that I want to open with, and dyeing is the quicker/easier aspect. I should be able to dye all of them over the course of 3-4 days which will happen next week. Squeee! I can't wait!

I've still got my Dbacks socks on the needles, as well as the SWTC cardigan. I'll be continuing progress on those today too. Once I double stitch the Dbacks "D" on the one pair, I'll post a picture for you all to see.

The in-laws are moving here this week. My husband is flying out on Thursday and will fly back with them on Saturday. My mother-in-law's room at the nursing home is all ready for her, and we are adding a few things she requested like a recliner chair, and a sewing machine. Yep, she can still get up and operate a sewing machine! I'm a little anxious over taking on this responsibility and keeping their presence here from effecting our lives too much, especially for my kids. But I think we've hashed out a lot of predictable problems as much as we can and we're as ready as we're going to be. It would be nice to feel some reassurance from his sisters regarding what we can expect from them as far as visiting the parents and care of them when we're on vacation and such, but it's become obvious that they can't be relied upon for any reassurance at all. Such is life.

Onward!

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Taking those first steps. Again.

I finally made it out for a real racewalking workout. First one in about 3 weeks and probably only the 2nd one this whole month. While not exactly like starting at square 1, it did sorta feel that way. As I pulled on my shoes this morning, I was almost nervous about this workout. Like I was doubtful about my ability to even go the (relatively speaking) short distance of 3 miles, let alone racewalk the whole thing. I got my iPod on, and as I stepped outside and warmed up a bit in my driveway, I realized that I had forgotten my Garmin. On second thoughts, I decided to leave it at home and just use the chrono on my regular watch. Did I really want to see how slow my pace was? Nah. Not that having the watch mattered much either. I'm apparently so out of touch with my workouts that I forgot to even start it. And I didn't even notice until I was about 2 miles into the workout. Freudian slip perhaps?

I ended up not racewalking the whole distance afterall, but mostly due to the heat which I've become unaccustomed to since Greer. Afterall, 3 weeks in temps that rarely went above 80 and were mostly in the 60's makes the blood a bit thicker. At 6am this morning, it was already approaching 90F here. I will need to re-acclimate to the conditions here before attempting anything too intense. Luckily, by the time that happens, temps will start coming down anyway with the approach of Fall.

I have not raced in well over a year now. I'm thinking that I should jump back into some events to help keep me motivated and accountable. I do know that when I was racing all the time, I was in great shape, and rarely if ever missed any workouts. I don't feel as competitive as I used to, but still enjoy a fun event, especially if shared with friends. I'll have to take a look at some local race calendars and see what's coming up in the Fall. And this year, I intend to participate in at least several judged racewalks in the winter. Last year, that was also my intention, but that nasty Valley Fever took me down for pretty much the whole Winter and much of the Spring.

On the needlefront, I'm almost done with my Mirrored Nutkins. I have just finished the gusset decreases on sock #2 so I'm in the home stretch. If I actually finish those today, I may finally cast on for the SWTC Cardigan that I've been meaning to start on. I'm meeting up with the knitting GRRRLs tonight which I'm so looking forward to. Haven't seen most of them in 3 weeks, and some, I haven't seen in over a month due to being away on vacations.

I need the destressing right now due to some family issues that have come up (again) with my in-laws. We are trying to move them over here, but are having serious problems with a location to place my MIL, who has Parkinson's. More than once now, we have located a place that is within a reasonable distance from our home, that has space, and looks acceptable, and were given lots of assurances that they could take on the care of her. However, when it came down to the final assessment, they say no, that she needs nursing care. And then we are back to square 1 with finding another place. Of course, this occurred again on Friday while we were on vacation. There was little we could do being away from home, over the weekend, and traveling via train. We jumped on it on Monday (mind you, we came home on Monday at around 3am), but despite all of that, some of his other family members are just breathing down my husband's back and b*tching at him. I don't think they really have a clue as to how much time and effort it takes to secure a place for their mother. I really feel for my husband who's taking time away from his job (which I sure hope he doesn't lose due to taking all of this time away), trying to balance everything, trying to shield me and the kids from the effects of all of this, and dealing with the complaints from his other family members. After taking on the extra $1600/month mortgage on this house that we bought for the express purpose of being able to take care of their parents, giving up private education for our kids, welcoming them into our home for the rest of their natural lives, agreeing to the commitment to take care of them for the rest of their natural lives, you'd think they'd be a little more appreciative. Or at least say thank you. We have not asked them to help out with the additional monies we will surely be spending just to have them here, let alone asked them to contribute to the additional mortgage we've taken on for their care. We've not asked them to do anything other than come here once, maybe 2x per year, so we can go on vacation. They won't even agree to that. My husband has flown out there no less than 2x per year every year for the past 5 years. Not to mention the combined 30 days they've spent here, with ME taking care of them, over the past 20 months so that they could be free from worrying about them over their vacations. You'd think they could at least give up 7 days per year between the 2 sisters. Nope. Instead they heap abuse on him and treat him horribly. And then they wonder why I don't want one of them in particular to ever come to my house. Yeah, like I would welcome someone in my home who has been sickly disrespectful to my husband. Not. My husband should be sainted for doing this, and putting up with all the abuse without retaliating. He's a better person than me.

OK, that's probably about enough for now!! I intend to have a great day with my kids (only 11 more days til school starts, I'm not looking forward to it, summer should be longer). Hope you all have a great day too.