Fuzzy Pants for Hobbits.

It's been pretty dreary outside lately making it hard to motivate myself to do much of anything.  I have vowed to this year get all of our fall clean up done before the new year is rung in.  But alas, I am now going to use the weather as an excuse for my lack of motivation to clean out the camper, get the lawn mowed and clear off the deck.  It has just started POURING outside and rain walks are the best!  After the Muk Muk was born and I was through recovering from surgery Muk Muk and I went for a walk every day, rain, snow, wind, hail, sun, you name it we were out walking around our neighborhood.  Not so much anymore since I've gone back to work, but we still try to go as much as possible.  Both of us LOVE walk time, but the best walks are always the ones in the rain.  Everyone else is holed up in their nice warm, dry homes and we are out laughing and running through puddles :) and the evil old man who lives up the road is never outside when it's raining.  AND our house has a pretty good view, overlooks the lake and mountains and trees.  So when the rain lets up we get some pretty wicked awesome rainbows too :)  Best part of a rainy day.

Dustin and I have recently almost completed the rearrangement of the inside of our home so that the Muk Muk can roam freely without getting killed (literally, we did not have a safe house at all!). We have a LOT of stuff, so this was no simple remodel. Before we even had a baby our house was full right to the brim with stuff that we use on an almost daily basis, so fitting in a crib and finding new homes for all of our things was quite the task then and we didn't have the safety factor to worry about. Oh and I may have forgotten to mention that the actual size of our house would be more suited for a family of hobbits. Perhaps if our stuff was hobbitsized we wouldn't have had to pack up boxes of stuff to store until the Muk Muk is older and able to understand that throwing knives aren't toys. 

I am running out of days to reach my goal and after re-arranging the inside of our home I have completely run out of motivational energy to get the outside stuff finished up.  So today should be the day that I tackle at least part of the outside clean-up to do list.  But it's raining.  So perhaps my highlights today should include a walk in the rain followed by a hot shower and fuzzy pants. 

The yardwork can wait for yet another day...

Birthday Weekend Carport Camping

Saturday was my favorite person's birthday and even though we tried super hard to celebrate, it seemed like everything we tried was a complete and utter failure.  Every year he is lucky enough to have his birthday fall somewhere on the September long weekend, which has resulted in that entire weekend being dedicated to the birth of Dustin (everyone else just gets one day, but he figures he deserves 4 and to avoid any further conflict I just let him have them).  Me being the pre-planner that I am found an awesome present two MONTHS ago and ordered it, and we planned an epic camping trip 3 WEEKS ago.  But do you think his present got here before Friday? You think we had a marvelous time camping for the weekend?  Hells no.  

We spent Friday in Vernon shopping and going for lunch baby  free (Thanks so much Monica) and then we packed up, drove out and were pumped to find a campground that didn't have a "full" sign.  Needless to say they didn't have any actual sites left, just room for tents.  We did have a tent with us, but two adults, three dogs and a baby in a tent in September?  No way.  So we had driven for over an hour just to turn around and drive home again, completely defeated.  But wait the camping excitement wasn't quite over yet, before we even hit the highway our truck kinda broke.  And by kinda broke, I mean a rather large piece half fell off (picture below).

After using a hammer and a chisel to literally smash this huge piece off we finally made our merry way home.  Baby headed to bed right away, lucky us this was the one and only trip that she literally screamed the whole way home, so she was pretty worn out.  Perhaps she knew that we were trying to go camping and she really wanted to go and was upset that we were on our way home.  After grabbing a beer from the cooler and before we started unpacking, I said "Fuck this, we're camping.  Who cares if we're in our carport?"  We pulled the chairs out of the trailer, grabbed the baby monitor from in the house, unloaded the cooler, BBQ'd up some hot dogs and eventually crawled into the trailer bed (with the three dogs).  I'm sure our neighbors thought it was a little weird to see us sitting around in our carport eating hot dogs at 11 o'clock at night, but making the best of a bad situation was such much fun :)

We stuck pretty close to home for the rest of the weekend.  It wasn't the weekend that we had planned for Dustin's birthday, but I think he had a good time.  He keeps saying he did anyways and he did manage to bank several hours in video games.  I think that the little bit of adventure that we did have was bad enough that neither one of us wanted to have any more :)  Needless to say, Happy Birthday Dustin!  I'm glad you were born this weekend many, many moons ago :)

Reading is not a sport.

A few years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how much I like to read and they began "the competition".  Every time I say I like to read, the person that I tell (whether I know them or not) usually has the same reply "I like to read too, I read more than you.  Have you read this, how bout this, how bout this?  No.  See, told you I was a better reader than you".  Do you have any idea how many books there are?  Just because I haven't read all of the same ones that you have doesn't mean I am a "bad" reader.  A guy I went to college with actually argued with me for well over an hour when I told him that there was no way his prof (who worked full-time and had a family) comprehensively read 10 full length books a day (or it might have been week, either way).  Perhaps he was a speed reader, but even then the key word here is "comprehensively".  Reading is not a competition people.  Reading is a hobby.  Reading is something that you do to sit and relax.  Nobody reads to be the best at it or to be able to say that they've read the most books.  In fact I like reading because it is one of the few things that doesn't involve any competition (despite those who try so hard to make it one).

I have read a lot of books.  I know that there are lots of other people who read and who read a lot too and I am sure that they read more than me.  My problem lies with those who will argue that they are such a "good" readers because they read soooooo many books and then they go out of their way to tell me that they are a much better reader than I am, and then I find out that they only read books written for 13 year olds.  Come on people...  Twilight???  An adult reading teen fiction is like a monkey peeling a banana, it's an mediocre task to get to what you want. Now don't get me wrong, I read my fair share of teen fiction, in fact I've read a lot of it.  Harry Potter, Vampire Diaries, Percy Jackson, Bartimaeus, Eragon, and of course the coveted Twilight.  I've got quite the collection :)  I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with reading these books, I'm just saying I don't think the definition of a "good reader" is someone who strictly reads books that are several decades below where their reading level should be.  I may have read Harry Potter, but I have also read War and Peace (I like to think that the two compliment each other nicely, Napoleon's march on Moscow - Voldemort's march on Hogwarts) and Moby Dick (fighting the white whale - fighting the evil wizard *haha*).  My personal definition of a "good" reader is someone who reads a wide range of books (at all levels), understands them, learns from them, and most of all enjoys them.

//:end.vent

Returning to Normal...

Woo Hoo!!!  5 and a half weeks of recovery later and I am officially allowed to return to "normal" physical levels.  Though "normal" will be a toned down version of where I was before I had to have surgery, "normal" is much better than "taking it easy".  I am officially allowed to return to the softball field, still no tackle football or cage fighting, but running bases is finally OK!  Long walks and short runs are also back in the mix which is good for me, Missy B and my puppies.  It's still a long cry from the hour long sweat marathons I was doing 3-4 days a week, but at least it's something.  I just hope I am not too out of shape after almost 8 weeks of laziness (3 weeks pre-op, and 5 weeks post-op).  It will be a few more weeks (2.5 to be exact) before I will be back to full capacity, that is if I remember to keep it toned down a little.  I have a slight tendency to overdo it if I'm feeling alright while I'm doing it (this resulted in some problems after my c-section).  Though I do feel that I have learned my lesson and I have a strong dislike for being "laid up".

I must say, I effing HATE recovery.  It's not so much the pain, or the actual surgery itself, it's the last few weeks when I'm feeling fine and knowing that I still shouldn't be pushing myself too hard.  I just never know where too hard is before it's too late.  I have been taking it really slow, like turtle pace slow.  Muk Muk and I did a few easy laps around our neighborhood the other night.  These laps can be a pretty good work out if you speed walk/jog pushing a 25 lb baby in a stroller, which is what we used to do, Muk Muk likes to go fast :).  Last night I played a game of softball making sure I was aware of how my body was feeling throughout the whole game.  I was more worried about stretching and tearing something than I was about getting hit by the ball.  Today I'm feeling fine, not sore in the slightest which is a really good sign.  Over the next two weeks I'll be able to build up to the renewal of my gym membership which I will only be doing on a month to month basis as last time I only got 2 months use out a four month membership grrrr...  Ectopic pregnancy was timed perfectly to screw me out of half my membership and those corrupt gym owners don't cut you any slack at all.

The only good thing about having surgery was the immediate drop of 5 pounds, literally over-night.  After they suctioned out all the blood that had built up in my belly and removed the "problem", the swelling went down almost immediately and I was glad to say I was 5 pounds lighter.  I had been pissed off at those 5 pounds for over a month already as they were the last 5 to a total of 50!  Yeppers, I lost 50 pounds.  I had gained a lot of weight with my pregnancy, 3 months of no exercise (as per doctors orders) followed by 6 months of bedrest will do that to someone who just wants to eat and eat.  I had gained 40 lbs to be exact.  

After I had Haven I was completely disgusted with myself and I did everything I possibly could to not turn into one of those "fat moms".  You know the ones.  They were "normal" sized until they had a baby and then five years later when their kid is starting school they still look like they are pregnant and all they do is blame their kid for making them fat.  After five years, it's not your child's fault any more lady!  I thought it would be impossible for me to get rid of that much weight little alone get back into the physical shape that I was in before I had Haven, but here I am.  Despite some minor setbacks, I am in even better shape than I was before I had the Muk Muk and I'm lighter too!  I just hope the last 8 weeks haven't ruined 8 months of hard work on my part, though I'm sure getting back on the fitness band wagon will be easier this time as I actually miss it.