Day 32

One Point.

When I woke up yesterday, I had the whole day mapped out. Take the day off from exercising and drive the kids to school and drive up to Apopka, to donate platelets at the blood center. Since this was supposed to take the whole morning, I had blocked off the whole day with nothing but watching DVDs and writing on the blog.

Did it happen? Of course, not. When does anything I ever plan, turn out the way I plan. The first part happened without a hitch. I drove all the way up to Apopka and siked myself up for the needle prick to attach my IV bag. But when I got there, my body had other plans. They checked my iron level and found that I didn’t have enough iron in my blood to donate. Now don’t worry, I had adequate levels to live, it’s just when you’re donating they hold you to a higher standard. Unfortunately, I was 1 point too low. One point! I was so frustrated. So I had the phlebotomist prick another finger. Sadly, that one was lower than the first one. Needless to say, they wouldn’t let me donate but they did let me keep the free travel mug. They sent me home with a list of foods to eat that would raise my iron and an appointment for next week.

I felt useless because I had nothing to do, but more so, I felt so bad for the people that I could have helped. On the drive home, I kept imagining what it would have been like if it was my mom, or my sister or one of my sons that needed the platelets and because I hadn’t been taking care of myself I couldn’t help them. I felt awful.

Even a walk through Sam’s Club didn’t help. It wasn’t until I was leaving the store, that my friend Jenny waved to me as she passed me in the store parking lot. She had her two little ones with her, I said hi for a few minutes and then I left to load my car.

As I closed my trunk, I thought of her with her two kids trying to get everything done in the store that she needed to. Before I knew it, I found myself pulling out a shopping cart for her and lifting up her little boy in my arms. It was nice to be talking to a friend. Since school had started we hadn’t seen much of each other. It was fun to spend time with her little boy and daughter and catch up. When her shopping was done, I helped her get her kids into the car and we made plans to go for our weekly 5k run the next morning.

Alone, I walked back to my car on the other side of the building and ran into my friend, Jaada. It was so nice to see her outside of church. We caught up for a few minutes and then she left to do her shopping.

I did a bit more shopping, ate lunch and found myself with some time on my hands so I popped over to my friend Gina's house. Soon it was time to pick up G-Man and then go get the younger two at their school.

I spent the afternoon helping with homework and cleaning the garage, but the highlight of my day ended up when JT asked me to help him with his bike. He’s really struggling with trying to learn how to ride it without training wheels. Although we didn’t get him riding for more than a few seconds at a time, it was raining and he was smiling. That image will be burned into my head for a long time. The rain, the smiles and his bike. What more could a mom ask for?

So, in the end I learned not to be so hard on myself. I need to take care of myself so that I have the chance to lots more of those memories burned into my head in the future. And second, even though the day didn’t turn out the way I planned, Heavenly Father had something better in store for me and that is enough for me. One point made the difference.

Day 31

Mama Duck
Growing up, I was the oldest of six girls. During my sixth grade year, three of my sisters were attending the same school as I was. It was my job to walk them to school and see that they got to where they belonged safely. Now I didn't mind it, I loved being with my sisters. The only problem was that as I walked, my sisters would start to fall behind. By the time we got to school we looked like a little train of ducks. For most of that sixth grade year, I was nicknamed "Mama Duck."

Today, felt much the same way. And this is our typical morning:

G-man, our 11 year-old will run to get on the bus to go to his school. The dog will start howling and barking because he can hear the chaotic excitement in the air. JT, the middle one-9, will start running around trying to find his glasses or an assignment that he forgot but will still be missing his shoes or maybe hasn't gotten dressed at all. RJ, our wee one-6, will have been dressed and ready to go since birth and will be waiting at the door to leave. I start to put on my jogging shoes, which sends the dog into a hissy fit knowing that his dog sled pulling (me dragging) time is about to start. Dad leaves for work and the panic in the dog's bark is enough to sizzle your ear drums. Jax, the dog, starts jumping on everything: the table with his leash and harness, the kitchen island with my fanny pack and water bottles. "Let's go! What's taking so long?" is all we can imagine him saying.

JT jumps on his scooter and starts down the drive way. RJ puts on his helmet and begins to pedal, but hasn't really gotten the hang of pedaling up-hill so the frustration in his voice begins. I have to remind JT to put on his helmet and before I know it, both boys yelling at each other or crying because they can't get the helmet strapped on right or they're mad because their brother is beating them down the sidewalk.

I'm frantically trying to get my headphone cables untangled and push RJ up the 15 degree "steep" angle of our drive way. With RJ finally headed in the right direction and my CardioTracker app finally working, I look off in the distance and JT is already three houses ahead of us. The dog begins dragging me as fast as my legs can carry me and we're off.

Within five houses, RJ has gotten stuck on a downslopped driveway and is heading into the street or JT has zoomed passed me so quickly that I can barely see his silhouette in the gleaming morning light. The dog tries to trip me, oh and look at that. Now he's pooped.

As we cross the first of four streets on our morning commute, RJ begins to have a panic attack as he nears the mail box that he crashed into his second day on the bike. I calm him down and he rides next to me back pedaling and crying about how he can't do this, only to tell me he loves riding his bike when I threaten to take his riding privileges away the next morning.

We're not even half mile down the road and my shins are screaming at me from yesterday's walk of torture. The dog is pulling me, secretly believing that we're in some kind of Roman Chariot race and that he has to pull us there before we're executed.

By some sort of miracle, I make it to the crossing guard at our last street and the boys have slowed enough for me to catch up to them at a fast jog as they cross the street. They ride, I scramble, to get to the end of the next block with them and then they are forced to get off their bikes/scooters and walk them the rest of the way into the school. The tired mommy in me screams that I should just drop them off here, but my heart aches to stay with them a few more seconds. With my legs yelping all the way to the walkers' gate, I walk my boys to the bike rack and hope for one last kiss and one last wave before they leave me.

Left alone now with the dog, I strap on my water bottle pack a little tighter and I go off to torture myself with another course of wogging (walking and jogging) until I some how make it home to start the rest of my day.

Today is Day 31 and while I only did 2.21 miles this morning, I'll probably head back out into the cruel world for some fresh air and strength training this afternoon.

As for today's weigh in, the Wii scale says I'm 1.8lbs heavier than yesterday. I don't like scales.

Day 30

Day 30. No, you're not missing anything. Day 30 is where we're starting and it's only out insanity of that any days after 30 will follow. While I was attempting to kill myself by walking a crazy seven miles today, it finally occurred to me that I ought to leave something behind for posterity. I finally thought that combining my two favorite things --writing and wogging (walking and jogging)--would be a great place to start. I can write about everything that is driving me crazy while I run and get some writing time in too.

So here's a quick catch up for those of you who might not have been bored by my status ramblings on Facebook. :):

This summer we decided to transfer our two youngest boys to the school that is in our neighborhood. Our oldest son is autistic and all three have been attending his school. Next year, he will be attending middle school at totally different school than the mainstream children. In order for the two younger ones to have some friends by the time they reached middle school, a move was necessary. We also thought it would save gas money and get me a little exercise in the process.

It's 30 days in now and the kids are adjusting to the new school well and have even figured out how to ride their bikes and scooters. The ride time has definitely shortened...for them. For me, things have definitely taken a turn. When this whole transfer idea was tossed around, I thought it would be great. Half mile walking to drop the boys off and a half mile back home. Two miles a day would be a great start to getting me back into shape. But then again I was already in shape, "round is a shape."

The first day of school was all nice and fun. I thought, "Maybe this just seems long because I haven't walked that far in a long time." On the way home, it was equally long only this time the 65% humidity and the 98 degree heat really got to me. The next day I decided to GPS the trip. To my great sadness and regret, especially for the boys, the trip was approx a mile each way. So not only was I tired walking 4 miles each day, but the boys were tired from school and now were having to walk two miles.

But like I said at the beginning. The boys have adjusted. They're riding their bikes and scooters and I sometimes ride my bike in the afternoon to pick them up. It's just the mornings that are getting harder.

In 70 workouts, I've gone approximately 99.09 miles (13 of which were just my wogging workouts on Monday and today). For some reason, I thought that if I kept walking I would get into shape or our puppy would be calmer in the afternoon or that I would lose lots of weight. So far none of that has happened. I mean, yes my clothes (blouses) are fitting better, but that's about as far as it goes. I'm so frustrated. It's not like I'm pigging out or eating horrible amounts of fast food or drinking gallons of soda. In fact, I'm doing the opposite, but I would like to see the scale go a different direction. I am 6 pounds lighter than my all time heaviest, yes I admit --167.8 pounds which I accomplished earlier this summer. For my little frame and short stature I should be around 124-130. But is it happening? No. Is the weight coming off? No. My pants fit me the same as always and that really stinks. My hubby says he can see a difference, but that isn't what I see when I'm sucking it in to button my pants. Ugh!

Tomorrow will be a light day and I'm going to try to add some weights in the groove. Let's just see how things go. Hopefully, today's workout doesn't decided to finally kill me in my sleep.

Today I weighed in at 161.4 after the walk. Breakfast: ate 1/2 cup bowl of Grape Nuts with 1/2 cup of 2% milk for breakfast. Lunch: ate a burrito bowl at Chipotle's with rice, roasted pork, lettuce and tomatoes. Dinner: Who knows.