Battle against Mother Nature

As promised here's a pic of my new fashion statement.

I accidentally slept in this morning. :(  Normally I get up at 6am every weekday so I can get to school and be guaranteed a free student parking spot. The extra time also enables me to get my workouts in and some homework. Thursdays are different though. I have my cleaning job with one of my clients today and somehow......somehow Brain knows that I don't have to be anywhere at 6am. So for the past 3 weeks or so I've gotten up at 6am except on Thursday, which is slightly annoying because I really would like that extra time for study.

In slightly better news, the snow storm did finally stop but it left a crap ton of snow behind. I suppose a bunch of snow is better to deal with than everything else. For a while it was getting fairly difficult just to go to and from campus.

I've resorted to putting a trash bag over my boot so that it doesn't get wet and damaged. I look kind of silly hobbling around with a trash bag over my leg.
I didn't have to be out long yesterday though. My other client for my cleaning job was yesterday so I was indoors most of the time. I got to polish silver spoons. It made my OCPD veeeeeery happy. :)

Not much else to report. Will probably take a bit to get used to little posts more often. I'm looking forward to the weekend since Husky comes here this time. We'll probably spend it working though. He has his thesis to finish up and I have homework to catch up on....sigh...

Make the snow stooooop!

Things have gotten a bit crazy. Sorry for the lack of posts. I've redone my schedule, in light of recent events so I'm going to try something different. Posting every day! Well, every weekday. I think trying to remember posting one larger post once a week plays into my ADHD too much and I get distracted by other things. I'll likely remember more if it's smaller posts throughout the week. This post will be a bit longer though, to catch everyone up on life's happenings.
As for what's been going on, I've been dealing with school and physical health, which unfortunately take priority when they go wrong. Let's start with physical health....

First the good news:

Now the bad news.....that image is 3 weeks old. The below image is what happened half a week after I achieved that:

So long story short, my shin splints got much worse. I eventually had to cut back on running until I finally caved and went to my doctor. She put me on crutches for my left leg, which was the worse of the two, and referred me to the campus orthopedic. A week later I saw him and after looking me over said I might have the beginnings of a stress fracture and that we will treat them as serious shin splints for the time being. He then referred me to the campus Sports Med physical therapist, and instructed me to do everything he said. Soooo another week later I see him (last Friday), and after being evaluated he insisted on taking a closer look at my leg and we found that I actually have 2 stress fractures in my left medial tibia. We determined the cause was I increased my training in too short a time period without realizing it. Hey, I don't have a trainer so I didn't know. :(  Also, I tend to push a bit harder depending on the music choice that's playing. Dragonforce is a favorite.

Soooo he fitted me with a boot to befriend my crutches (I'll have pics of that tomorrow), and now I hobble around on those. I'll have to obviously continue physical therapy. I was told to not be surprised if this takes up to 3months to get me back to running just 5mi. So...half of what I was doing. ...sigh. He said if I do everything right, don't cheat, and heal properly, my marathon won't be out of the equation and I might heal quicker.

Speaking of Dragonforce, I don't think Husky likes me listening to them while driving... I swear I'm a safe driver! They're just a really good band to listen to.... Lol.

Anyways, needless to say, the no running has hit me pretty hard. Not only do I really enjoy running but it has a really big significance for me as well. I was never a runner before. My lungs couldn't take the endurance, and so I favored sprinting or sport positions that only required short bursts of speed (defense in soccer, outfield in softball...etc). I could only accomplish becoming a runner because I worked so hard on my endurance and strength through the Insanity Cardio program...but I was only able to accomplish that because I was so fed up with where I was in my life after the divorce (and my brother gave me good motivation to do it too). Regardless of how long the distance, every time I complete a run I feel this overwhelming feeling of "I did this. I can really do anything." For me, running is almost a physical manifestation of the feelings that encompass everything around who I was before and how hard I worked to become the person I am now.
No other sport does that for me like running. So for the first week or so, of no running, I was pretty depressed and irritable. Husky and I had our first argument about it. I'd been dreading that "first argument" mainly because of past experiences. Usually there are only 2 reasons why you have an argument in a relationship: either there is no communication about something or one of you is being a complete idiot.
I wish I could say it was the former. I can handle those in spades. I also wish I could say it wasn't me being the idiot. Both of those would be lies though. Lol. He really was being concerned for me and I should have listened when he said I'd run myself into crutches if I didn't slow down and rest. Of course he knew I knew all this and was just being stubborn, so he wasn't really mad at all. In fact he just acted adorable and then I had no more reasons to be mad either. :)

I <3 him. How could you be mad after that?  :)

Anyways. That covers physical health. As for school, well...I'm behind in work. The crutches, while an amazing arm workout, wear me out every day because I am essentially lifting 140lbs (180lbs with my backpack) every second or so, while I walk. So I was exhausted every day for a while until I got used to it and adjusted my sleep times. Unfortunately I fell asleep in a few classes...

And I also just super ADHD distracted, especially this weekend for some reason. So rather than continue farther down the wrong road I've tried turning around and set up weekly meetings with my professor to get extra 1 on 1 time to go over the week's materials. Hopefully I can catch back up. I also revised my schedule to fit in more homework time, without compromising too much time for myself, time with Husky/friends, or time for fun things like this. :)

Other minor things that happened. Husky fixed my piano! YAY! So now I can start practicing again! I was going to sell it but once it was fixed I changed my mind. :P

I also rearranged my room to be more awesome. I do this from time to time. Make me feel happy and it's fun. I even made a ton of paper snowflakes and taped them from my ceiling. It's awesome.

I met a guy who's an Ultra Marathoner. He runs 100mi runs....through mountains and other shit. o_o  I was really impressed. Also, I wondered if there was something wrong with me when my only thoughts were "Awesome! I want to do that!"

Work has been great. I made my special trail mix for them and it was devoured....well all but about 1cup. And then someone ate all the M&M's and left the rest. Lol!

I found the culprit and we had a laugh. :)

I think the only last bit of news has to do with the title...

MAKE THE SNOW STOP PLEEEEAAAASE!!

My god it just keeps coming! Do you have any idea how hard it is to walk in a boot and crutches through blizzard conditions?!? Just when you think it's finally done for the winter, Mother Nature is like, "Herpderp! Lol!"

Resolutions!

I got a little crazy with my new header picture....lol. It does kind of fit the way I am, though, so I like it.

It's always sad when the holiday decorations come down, around this time. Though, if your holiday decorations just happen to also be normal decorations then it's still kind of nice. Like instead of spending the money on a tree, Husky offered his green rocket he build to serve as our tree this year. :)

Also around this time of year is when it usually snows. Though I've discovered that because of the lake effect in here, we don't really get that much snow as opposed to other places. Kind of frustrating.

Aside from winter fun I've been working on getting ready for the next semester. I got lazy with winter break and decided I didn't want to post anything but school starts next week, so I'll have a nice tight schedule once again.
To start with, I'll be working in a new second job! Yay! It's a campus job, working with the off campus housing department (Aka: NHO). I'm going to be one of 3 Project Managers in the department. I'm pretty thrilled, especially since I was worried that I bombed the interview. Glad I didn't. The job is great. I get evenings, weekends (usually), super flexibility around my classes and cleaning job, and everyone in the office is really nice and easy to work with. Couldn't get any luckier than that.

January is also the time when people decide on their New Year's resolutions. Of course I have some. I didn't get to last year's, which was to compete in the WI Tough Mudder so that's getting tacked on. My official resolution, though, is one I'm excited for. I've decided to train for a marathon, in October or November hopefully.

This of course means more strength training, to which my cats help out:

More strengthening of my lungs and heart, which doesn't make them too happy, but Brain wins this:

And of course...more running! I'll be posting my new pic with updated times as I train:

Holiday Extravaganza!

Sorry about the lateness. After Thanksgiving break was over I pretty much had to shift towards finals mode, with school.
The break was good though as I got to see family, some of which I hadn't seen in 4yrs. I really enjoyed seeing my two brothers again and hanging out with them. On Black Friday my youngest brother, his fiancé and I all went to Best Buy for a harddrive I wanted. I tried online earlier but their site was having trouble accepting my gift cards, so we had to do it the old fashioned way. The 3 of us bundled up in a large blanket, amidst the large line that wrapped around the building. We looked similar to the Pokemon Dugtrio.

Around 9pm I had the good sense to call the company and find out that they could order it for me over the phone and implement my gift cards there. So we left all the other poor, cold people behind and went home to enjoy nice warm drinks and decent sleep. Though, I do still love a good Black Friday. My favorite one was one of my first, when my whole family would make a quest of it. At that time I was in charge of the Best Buy deals, my mom and first youngest brother was WalMart, and my dad was Target. The youngest brother was too young so he stayed with the grandparents. Back then it wasn't so crazy so you could show up around 3-4am and get a decent spot in line. They also opened at 6am rather than 12am, like now.
I can remember standing in line with all the other cold people, when my dad suddenly showed up with warm cocoa and a donut, stating that his line wasn't that bad and he opted to go get us all breakfast at the 24hr gas station before getting back in line. It was the best Black Friday ever.

Of course, Thanksgiving ended and I was back in school gearing for finals. The weather also started getting significantly colder, so I've switched over to much more appropriate wear. Though I still get away with my skirt look as long as I wear some warm leggings.

Finals eventually hit and I pretty much did nothing else. In fact, during the last week I was so stressed that my insomnia got worse and I got about 14hrs of sleep in a total of 7 nights. 3 nights in a row I couldn't sleep at all. I tried of course, but most of the time I gave up and spent the night doing productive things like studying, watching anime, or making Xmas gifts/projects. Even my weekends of seeing Husky turned into study time with him, mainly because he insisted. He even threatened to take away my sewing supplies if I even so much as looked at them. I practically lived, breathed, and ate my schoolwork, so much so that I was occasionally just losing it to ADHD.

It was all worth it in the end though. I finished the semester with a B+ in Neuropsychology and an A- in Advanced Psychological Statistics. Once again I outdid myself in my awesomeness.

And thus Christmas time began!!

If there's on time of the year I love most it's winter. The snow, the good food, Christmas music, decorations... I love it all! Christmas is that one time of year that even the ugly parts of town look pretty. The oldies radio station also switches over and plays non-stop Christmas tunes for a whole month. I was thrilled about that, this year, because this time I could play them in my car for however much I wanted and didn't have anyone to bitch at me for doing so. I could listen to them while I worked, exercised, and more. But, of course, I could not get away with listening to them non-stop around Husky. His hometown always overdid Christmas and I guess it took the fun out of it for him. :(  Hopefully he'll get some of that joy back while being with me.

This year was also a huge improvement to any previous years because I got into more of the my city's activities. There was the tree lightings, reindeer viewings (in the city, which was cool), and other fun things that I just never got to do before...or for that matter didn't even know existed. Of course many of them were geared towards kids....which also coincidentally sounded lots of fun too....

And then it finally snowed. I was visiting Husky at the time and could have probably burst into a billion little snowflakes of happiness myself.

Like all holidays, Christmas came and went. I received many awesome gifts, although I'm still working on mine to others since finals kept me from finishing most all of them. My favorite gifts are probably the heart monitor my brother so thoughtfully got me to help in my running and the handmade earrings and necklace Husky made for me, out of rock climbing equipment. They are so incredibly cool and really impressive. I've never had a boyfriend make me something, especially jewelry. Guess that's a nice thing about dating an engineer. Usually I was always the one making my gifts since I held the sculpture degree. Speaking of which, he totally loves the bacon scarf I made for him. :)

I even got new cleaning materials earlier in the month, which was exciting as well.

And now we're on the cusp of 2013. The "end of the world" as predicted by people reading the Mayan calendar did not, in fact, happen...though that didn't stop us from having an awesome time drinking at bars to the end of it all. 

Currently, I'm finishing up my Christmas gifts, as well as other things on my "to do list" that have been piling up over the semester. I've been of course spending more time with Husky, which has been really nice. Next weekend we're going skiing, which I doubt either one of us can wait for. In a few days I'll begin studying for the GRE, as I'd like to take it before the next semester gets too crazy. 

To be honest, it feels weird. I sometimes find myself looking back to last year, and remembering where I was and then realizing just how far I've already come. Last year I spend Christmas completely alone, with my 2 cats and a rotisserie chicken. It wasn't the most enjoyable of times for me, in fact it was definitely one of the worst. And yet here I am just one year later and I honestly almost can't believe how far out of that hole I brought myself. There were times I didn't even think I could. I'm really proud of myself and of course I also have to thank all my friends and family for supporting me through it all. Thanks, everyone. Whether you're reading this or not, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I couldn't be more thrilled to finally be able to say I'm person that I want to be and that I always should have been.

And now I'm looking forward to 2013. I know that regardless of what challenges come my way I can overcome all of them with my head held high. I've already taken on some of the hardest so I know I can do it. I can't stop and I won't. I plan on running into the new year at full speed, and hopefully I won't need to stop long for any challenges cause I'll just plow right through them. :)

So with that, Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2013 treats you well and you have much merriment in the next year. Whether you're alone with pets and comfort food, or spending your holidays with friends and/or family, know that bad times seldom last and if you just poke at them enough with a super sharp stick they'll eventually get tired of you and go away.

Keep being awesome everyone.

....awesome like my Sonic costume idea for the next anime convention I go to...