Today was a super busy day. Our new staff members were coming back, I was making changes to our programming forms, getting stuff ready for selection and having conversations about speakers for the Women's Center. I love days like this. I feel like I'm alive and I feel sooooo accomplished. I'm looking forward to tomorrow...a day full of training and then a big staff meeting! This is why I do this job...for the students. I love when they're excited to come back, I love when they have great programming ideas, I love how they roll with change (well, some of them). So even though I work like crazy, I will probably never change fields because this is what I was meant to do.
Now, on to the title of this post. I went to the chiropractor and she said she had good news and bad news. Good news is that my bones are okay, there's no degeneration or arthritis. The bad news is that it means it is muscular and therefore, harder to diagnose. Dr. Pape decided we were going to use a graston tool to break up the scar tissue in my hips at my next appointment, but today she was going to adjust me and do treatment. So I lay facedown on the table and she starts pressing on my back...and I'm in a lot of pain. She decided to do some orthopedic tests and at the end, decided I had damage to my sacroiliac joint. I had probably damaged it awhile ago and kept re-injuring it by running and doing things like P90X. It's so nice to know what is wrong so that we can get started on getting it fixed. She said that with care, it will 3-4 months to heal as long as I don't go jumping around and/or running. BUT-she cleared me for other exercise! So now I can do things like the Wii, and the yoga and arms videos in P90X. It'll be nice to get off the stupid treadmill and do something other than walking.
She also changed my diet. She knew the no carbs after 3pm thing was killing me. So the fruits and vegetable rule is staying, which has been fairly easy for me. She wants me to eat whole wheat when it comes to carbs (easy enough for me, something I already try to do) and keep my fats down. I think this is going to be easier for me. I know this weekend will be tough with Sean's wedding, but I just need to concentrate on making good choices and focusing on my fruits and vegetables. And now I should empty the grocery bags currently hanging out on my floor!
I broke all sorts of grocery shopping advice tonight. I didn't have any re-useable bags in the car, I shopped while I was hungry, I didn't have any coupons, I didn't use a list and wandered down every aisle. Which is probably why I ended up with 3 boxes of cereal. And 2 boxes of crackers. But at least I got lots of fruit to go along with it!
Ok, really going to put away groceries now. I'm going to apologize in advance for a short hiatus on posting, but I have training all day tomorrow, then we're leaving bright and early on Friday for wedding stuff all weekend. Look for a post on Monday with a recap and wedding pictures!
My alarm today went off at 6:15am. I looked at my phone, decided to go back to sleep and woke up at 7:15am to an email from College Relations saying the college was closed and an email from Amy going "What the hell! We have work to do!" So I spent the morning doing work on the couch, then headed into the office around noon. Our office parking lot was a deathtrap due to the ice, but I made it in and finished training sessions and a good chunk of evals.
I got to the hairdresser at 5pm and spent two glorious hours getting my hair highlighted and cut. It looks so much better and I finally found a nail color that is semi-close to the Waitress nail color that I've had on my toes since the wedding. Hopefully I will get around to actually doing my nails before Saturday!
New staff comes back tomorrow, chiro tomorrow night, then home to bake for Thursday night staff meeting! I'm excited to see my students back on campus and get started with V-Day stuff, the Women's Center Retreat and Selection!
Oops! Sorry about the hiatus! The snow day was great and relaxing....we even managed to shovel out the cars and get a short walk in.
Thursday was busy. I moved my office around so I didn't get settled in until late, but did get a lot done in the afternoon before the chiropractor. I was actually excited to weigh-in and had actually lost weight. I packed quickly on Thursday night because Friday was a busy day!
I went to the dentist in the morning, then went for x-rays, then finally headed into work for a few hours before leaving for the W-B! I got to Borland&Borland in time to help pack up and then we headed to dinner. It is always so good to see the Meyers debate crew. We headed home for a nightcap and bed.
Saturday: The 12th Annual Martin Luther King Speech and Debate Open Tournament. My 11th year volunteering. My responsibilities have definitely varied over the years, but I always judge at least one round and keep Sarah relatively sane. I was talking to Jack Connelly, who has been a coach forever, and I was saying something about my honeymoon. His response was "What!? You're married! You can't be married! You're still young!" He's known me since my freshmen year of high school so I guess he's seen me grow up quite a bit. It also means I've been doing forensics for almost 20 years. I love coaching and forensics...I need to find a college that has a team so I can coach and judge again! Anyway, the tournament went off really well and we were on to dinner at a relatively decent time.
Sunday was a day of REST. Slept in, had breakfast late, took our time getting ready, then went to the movies. We saw "The King's Speech" and now I want to go research the Windsor arm of the monarchy. It was really cute and very appropriate for a speech filled weekend! We did Hibachi for dinner and I ate all sorts of stuff that I don't normally eat. The first time I went to a hibachi grill, I ate the shrimp...and that was it. Last night I had edemame, noodles, scallops, shrimp, zucchini and cabbage.
I finally headed back this morning and decided to detour and surprise my parents, so I grabbed breakfast with them, hit the road and went to the office. One day, I will actually get caught up with work. I promise. And not bring it home after I go to the chiropractor. Where I cried like a baby because I'm so frustrated that I have no willpower. She said we're going to try something new. Gah, it's just so frustrating....I just want to run, eat whatever I want, and get back my fighting weight.
....and that's really the most exciting part.
Today consisted of checking vacant rooms, shuffling stuff around in my office and going out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday, where I ate completely within my points for the day! Woot!
I had the crab cake dinner with the white cheddar mashed potatoes and grilled green beans and Matt had steak and lobster with the same sides. I actually didn't even finish my meal because it was so big. Also, I realized I have a slight obsession with remoulade and need to learn how to make it ASAP.
Matt is off tonight, so I'm excited we get to both be off tomorrow to be snowed in together. Granted, I plan on pounding out evals and training sessions, but I get to do it in sweatpants on my couch, so that makes it 10 times better. And I can do laundry at the same time. It's a day full of win.
Matt had been sleeping on my lap for the past 2 hours, so as soon as Parenthood is over, I'm dragging him back to bed and sleeeeeeping iiiiin!
Despite my cupcake and pizza eating, sleeping in until noon and exercising by sliding down hills on my butt, I actually lost weight at my weigh-in with the chiro today. Hopefully the downward slide will continue.
Yesterday was some more sleeping in, but Matt woke up around 2pm and we went for a walk in the Arbo. The snow was gorgeous and deep and we went searching for trails that no one had walked on yet, so our walk was long!
Today was back to work and I was super productive this morning. Hammered out 3 evals, went to the gym during lunch and then we had a productive staff meeting. We're going to be busy, but it's all for the students, so that's all that matters.
The chiro appointment was good, but painful today. Because I'm still getting the pain in my hips, she's sending me for x-rays to see if it is bone related. I know it's sad, but I hope they find something so I can get to work on healing. It's frustrating to have this constant pain and not know what is causing it. The thought of carrying an extra 10 pounds on the front of my body while having these hip problems is a little terrifying at the moment.
We spatchcocked a Cornish game hen tonight and broiled it on the cast iron grill pan. It took about 10 minutes and was absolutely delicious. And I could eat half of it for 9 points! I also did green beans with garlic and almonds, sauteed in olive oil. Thanks to all my vegetables and fruits today, I still have points left, so I'm going to scrounge something up, then go watch Guster on Conan.
Thursday night, I headed to Quinnipiac to hang out with Heather before we went to the Women's Retreat the next day. We spent a pretty quiet night, watching Grey's and Private Practice, playing with Phil's Ipad and sharing Res Life war stories.
We woke up early the next morning and drove our cars over to the Student Affairs building. Depending on how many of the QU folks were going I was either going to ride with them or follow them down in my car. There ended up being enough room, so we piled into Megan's SUV and headed to New Rochelle. Cathy had asked Jenn to print the programs, so we headed down early so we could help stuff folders for set up. That was quick, so we had breakfast and then started the retreat.
The speakers for the day were all great. It was nice to be reminded to take care of yourself and to hear from other women who were now VPs and Deans how they raised families and made the time to get their advanced degrees. It's nice to create new relationships and to renew acquaintances. I really enjoy the people who go to NEACUHO events and I feel very comfortable with everyone. The snow was falling throughout the day, so we knew we were in for a long ride home, I just don't think we realized how long!
We left New Rochelle around 3:30pm and got onto 95 to head home. Note, it took us about an hour and a half to get to New Rochelle from Hamden. We got out of NY, went through the toll into CT and BAM! hit traffic. Life 5mph traffic. Google Maps was telling us it would take almost 5 hours to get home with the traffic. We crawled along for awhile and talked about work for the most part. When we got to Stamford, we figured it was time to stop for dinner and found a pizza place to grab pizza and a beer. Dinner was good, if a little bigger than we thought. We then headed to Crumbs for cupcakes and spent a good 10 minutes staring at the all the variety before we figured out what we wanted. We then got on 15, which was much worse than 95 road condition wise. Meg's loss of traction light kept coming on and it was affectionately dubbed the "Oh shit!" light. I decided pretty early on in the ride that I was not going back to New London that night so when we finally made it back to QU, Megan dropped us off at the Commons and we went inside to relax.
We got back to the apartment around 9:30 and Heather's garbage was stinky, so she wanted to take it down the hall to put with the other garbage. While she was down the hall, I heard someone tapping at the window and yelling what I thought was "Help!" I grabbed Heather from the hallway and the tapping and yelling continued. The voice started yelling "Heather! Phil!" but we were both too freaked out to look out the window and see who it was, so Heather called Security. Right after she hung up, there was a knock on the door and she looked through the peephole to find her co-workers in snow gear. In walks Chris and his wife and Dustin, more hall directors. Chris and I had worked together on the drive-in conference for the fall so we knew each other. They wanted us to come out and play in the snow, so I borrowed some snow gear and we went out to play in the snow. We slid down hills and threw snow balls and basically ran around like 7 year olds with potty mouths. Heather took video of us sliding down the hills and I laughed. A LOT. It felt pretty awesome. We finally got tired and headed back to the apartment to enjoy the cupcakes we had bought and head to bed.
I got up super early, drive back to New Lo, dropped my stuff on the floor of the living room and went right back to bed, which is where I spent most of the day. I finished my book and finally got up around 4 to shower and check email and read my RSS feed.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victims today in the shooting in Arizona. It is appalling to me that members of our nation feel that violence is a way to make a difference. I hope that the leaders of our country come together to look for a solution to the never ending violence in our country.
I read a few things today that made me think about why I'm pushing myself to get thin again. I say again, because I was thin....actually dangerously thin for awhile:
This was sophomore year of high school, so I was 15....but I was even thinner at 17. A combination of aerobics for gym classes and throwing up sporadically due to my awful break-up with Steve and I was fitting into my sister's pants by New Year's Eve. That emotional upheaval in my life probably made me the strongest I have ever been in my body, but I was not there mentally. I was a mess, in fact.
This article made me think about that time in my life and why I'm doing this. Who am I doing this for? For myself? For Matt? Am I going to wait until I'm actually pregnant to make sure I'm making healthy choices?
I think what drives me crazy is that it's not easy anymore. I can't eat whatever I want and kick my ass in the gym and be fine. And that's what is killing me right now. I can't just eat whatever I want and I can't kick my ass in the gym because of my hips. Today was an accomplishment. I got 5 servings of fruit and vegetables today, I drank all my water, I didn't eat any simple sugars after 3pm, and I even did 40 minutes of Spin today. And it was freakin' hard. I want potatoes with my chicken and spinach. I want to eat a cookie after dinner and not feel like I've ruined the whole day. Does it get easier? Dr. Pape says that it takes 3 months to form a habit and that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. Definitely not the way I have conditioned my mind or body to lose weight.
Which kind of annoys me about The Biggest Loser. Don't get me wrong, I love the stories, I feel for the people on the show....but you don't see them eating very often. You don't see what it looks like when they sit down with a meal that they make for themselves on the ranch. They eat a lot of Subway, thanks to their marketing agreement. But shows like this convince people (like me) that if you push your body intensely, the fat will melt off. This journey is a struggle and I need all the help I can get. Let's get me back to this:This was senior year of college. This is one of my sister's prom dresses and I also had a wicked cold that night, but I was pretty healthy then. Lauren kept dragging me to the gym. :)
So much for Wii Active tonight. I am now restricted to only walking. I did get her to bump it up to two miles, but still, it kind of sucks. I feel like I need to really push myself to accomplish anything. She did say that I would eventually run again, but it's not happening anytime soon. I also got a new diet rule tonight: Now simple sugars after 3pm. That means no pasta, bread, candy, desserts...I may starve. Time to start looking for protein and/or vegetable heavy dinners!
I ended up walking the loop today, but it was bitterly cold. I'll walk again tomorrow, but I'm definitely going to the gym to walk on the treadmill.
