My New Best Friend

Please bear with me while I pull together the last installment of "You Ask, I Answer"... the fabulous Q & A game that bares all, tells all. (Answers vol. 1, vol. 2. and vol. 3 can be found by clicking on those numbers). The video is just boring and long, and I am figuring out how to spice it up and make it interesting and entertaining. I hope to debut it on Monday, at which point I will also announce the Nuun winners :)


In the meantime...

I would like to introduce you to my new best friend...

This is her good side.

She's doesn't have a whole lot going on on the inside.

My physical therapist introduced us. She goes by the name The Grid... click on it to read her specs. What I love about her more than other foam rollers are the following:

• the little ridges and groove things make it hurt more while rolling, thus making me hurt less after,
• no deforming over time... my other roller started looking like an hourglass, and
• the hollow, PVC-pipe core make her easier to take on trips... I can pack stuff inside of her so she really doesn't take up a whole lot of space in the bag/suitcase.

She and I have been spending a lot of time together since I was rear-ended a week ago Tuesday. I do believe she is helping get me back to running sooner than if we hadn't met. She wasn't cheap... but she's worth it ... and so am I :)

So... yep... haven't really run in over a week. It sucks. I did get a little, easy 3-miler in on Tuesday. I was going to run yesterday, but I was slammed by a migraine that sent me to bed at 7:30 (about 5 hours earlier than normal... and before my normal running window of opportunity). I hope the headache lifts enough by this evening so that I can log a few miles. I am working on my patience big time. I don't want to be a DASA.  I know that waiting until I don't feel off-kilter and bound up will pay off. And I know that not waiting will come back to haunt me... so I wait.

I've gotten a couple of bike rides in... one early enough in the evening that I was able to take these cool pictures...

At the southern end of my ride that day was an old city dump. 

People make all kinds of interesting things out of found objects

(read: junk)

This little amphitheater-ish thingy is one such creation.

There is a community of 'homeless' squatters who live in lean-tos and tents in the near vicinity...

I think they have little bonfire parties in this amphitheater sometimes.

At the northern end of my ride was the Rosie the Riveter Memorial...

These structures are an artist's rendition of ship-building...

I think this is the bow...

this may or may not be the part in the middle of the ship where the control guys hang out

(my Love Boat-watching self seems to think this was called the 'bridge')

and in the distance, out over the water, is the stern.

But I may have the bow and stern reversed :P

There are a whole lot of commemorative pavers between the bow and stern...

below are three of them...

Fascinating stuff, history. 

World War II, the war efforts and the ship-building industry are largely why my mom's side of the family wound up in these parts.

A less experienced athlete and younger person might be getting super duper agitated by needing to sit out for two weeks when in the middle of training for a half-marathon AND getting ready for a rapidly-approaching team event like the Hood to Coast Relay... stressing about letting her Nuun Platuun down. Well, I know that I will be much more likely to perform at my highest level by taking care of this pain biz NOW. I'll come back fresh and feisty... raring to go... Commando, I am :)

On the parenting front, I am struggling. My kids fight a lot. I know I need to get more authoritative with them... but I have been doing this for 16 years and am feeling a trifle burnt out. 

I just found out that my 6-year old has been going across the street to play Halo video games. We don't have video games over here... long story involving my stepsons, and husband hurling the nintendo down the street into the vacant lot to get them to finally stop needing to be glued to the darn thing. So Q-Man has been having nightmares and lots of separation anxieties lately... thanks, Halo. I just read the parental reviews on that one. What are those neighbor parents thinking? Clearly not what I'm thinking :P No more video games for now.

Baby X begged to go to another session of camp. She loves it so much. She has her father's awesome social streak. Lucky her :)

Big G is reading like the reading fiend he is. And fighting with his younger siblings. 

Miss C is into anything and everything. She can climb all the safety gates... they are now just decorative. She has figured out how to bust the doorknob covers off so can enter any room she wishes whenever she wants. She learned to push the chair over to and climb up on the kitchen counter to access the upper cupboards, where the cookies and chocolate live. She has started biting! Even herself! And now she likes to slide down the bannister...

But she gets stuck at the bottom. And screams.

Here's hoping for lovely weather for us all, enjoyable and healthy exercise, relaxing family moments and world peace :)

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!