Category: Uncategorized

In Search of Sweet Dreams

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. There’s not doubt to the depths of my fatigue as of late, but when the time comes for me to power down and tuck in for the night, it doesn’t happen. In our household, when the Hubs says he’s going to bed, he shuts off his computer, puts on his pjs, and gets in the bed. He may read for a little bit, but usually the time between him announcing his departure for slumber and the actual lights clicking out is less than 10 minutes. Me on the other hand? I say I’m going to bed and proceed to do the following:

1. empty the dishwasher
2. clear the counter top of drying dishes
3. wipe down counters
4. move dry laundry to laundry basket
5. move wet laundry to dryer
6. clear off the kitchen table
7. push in all the chairs around the table
8. set the table for tomorrow’s breakfast
9. close the lid to the piano
10. collect wayward toddler, 6 year old and 8 year old detritus to bring upstairs

and this is ALL BEFORE I EVEN GO UPSTAIRS!

There’s another set of ten or so things that happen before I get in the bed, and then once I’m in the bed, I spend a few minutes massaging my leg with this scar cream that I think is really just a bottle of Nivea dressed up to look like a legitimate prescription. I put my bonnet on, strap my leg into my orthopedic boot (yes, I’m still wearing this thing), and turn off the lights. As I settle back into my pillow, my muscles uncoiling, my brain decides to remind me of the possible adventures that tomorrow will bring. If I get up 15 minutes later than usual, I’ll really enjoy a few more minutes of sleep If I get up 15 minutes earlier, though, I could knock out a few crunches before having breakfast. Or I could fold that laundry while I watch the news. Did I remember to pack the right amount of snacks in the girls’ lunches? Tomorrow I”m supposed to read at school before lunch or is it next Thursday before music class? How many trips to Target is it going to take to get all of the things on M’s camp list? Can I get it all done before V conks out for a nap? What is that noise? Did I remember to lock the front door?

Did I turn the lights off? Is my car locked? Where’s my wallet?

And so on and so on before my alarm is tolling me awake with increasing volume. I’m up and the cycle repeats itself. The last few days, this endless listing of what the following day will bring has been supplanted with the most disturbing of dreams. I don’t know if it’s something that I ate, if it’s something in my subconscious trying to get out or what, but I go to sleep and am immediately plunged into a dreamscape that leaves me more tired upon awakening than when I went to sleep.

Have you ever had one of those dreams that you know isn’t real, but you can’t escape it no matter how much you try? Have you have ever had one of those dreams several nights in a row? It’s exhausting. It started several days ago and the dream was basic in its premise. I was at home, but it wasn’t my home. I was with my family, but they didn’t look like my family. We had a cage full of a dozen ferrets that I was responsible for and, while it wasn’t verbalized, somehow I knew that if I didn’t take care of them, they’d go all Gremlin on me. This was the first time I’d ever had a roiling anxiety stomach ache in a dream. I’ve never had a ferret in real life! I know that they feel like liquid fur, they can be both cute and vicious and that even though they’ve had their scent glands removed, they still stink. The entirety of the dream was me taking care of these ferret, hoping that they didn’t freak out, with my nose full of musk and my stomach on pitching and rolling like I was on the deck of the Titanic. The whole while, I’m telling myself, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. Wake up, dummy! Wake up!” No haps. When I finally did emerge from that bizarre tableau, it wasn’t because I had clawed my way into consciousness. It was more of a bucket of water in the face type of wake-up courtesy of my alarm. Nothing is more disorienting that going from sleep to wakefulness, but feeling like you haven’t really left the former behind.
Same dream the next night, with minor changes. And another night, same basic premise, but now the ferrets has evolved into anthropomorphic type creatures. . .and they were wearing clothes. They looked like those jet pack wearing, roller skating dogs from Madagascar 3 (hello, subconscious).

I have no idea what all of this means. I have read articles about the symbolism involved in dreams, but I’d be really impressed if there was a ferret related symbolism that has been discussed. Certainly, the feelings of anxiety are legitimate. There’s a lot going on in my life right and I’m doing my best to keep all my plates spinning in the air. Time management, which used to be my strong suit, has not been as easy for me to get my arms around. The to-do list grows and I find myself adding things that I’ve already done just so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them off.
Which brings me to today. This whole thing has been unnerving and I need to put a stop to it because my energy is flagging, my crankiness is skyrocketing and I am close to delirious from lack of sleep. I can’t mess around any more. The Hubs has been out of for several days and I am doing above and beyond Super Mom duty in his absence. There’s no time for poor sleep. Counting sheep, warm milk and the like isn’t my jam. I don’t want to take any sleep aids because I’m afraid that one of the children will need me and I won’t be able to respond to them. What’s a girl to do?

I’m going to start with food. No more to eat after 8pm. I’ve already cut my caffeine consumption dramatically. Instead of 2-3 cups a day, I’m down to like 2 or 3 a week. I’m drinking tea and even that’s decaffeinated. As for wine — I can never remember if it’s red before or what, but no matter. This Lenten experience with no alcohol has also altered my consumption of the grape and grain.

When I’m ready for bed, I’m going to get ready for bed. Wash the face, twist the hair, put on the jammies. I’m truly going to power down when the time comes. No more texting up until I turn off the light. I will actually turn the phone off, turn the iPad off, turn the computer off. I will use a real clock (what? they still make those?) as my alarm.

I will put lavender oil on my wrists.

I will use the same charm on myself that I give to the girls to ensure sweet dreams: Think about all the good things that happened to you today. Think about all of the good things that will happen to you tomorrow. Think about all the people that you are thankful for, whose lives you’ve touched and whose lives have touched yours.

I will use some old yoga skills to bunch and relax my muscles groups in an orderly progression from my toes to my head until I’m nothing but a puddle under my blankets.
I will stand on the edge of solid wakefulness, my toes moving closer to fathomless sleep.

I will step.

I will fall.

I will sleep.
I will sleep.
I will sleep.

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IN: ON: April 30, 2014 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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Staying Sharp

I think I’m getting dumber.  Not that I was ever a font of pertinent information, but there was a time when I could readily call upon facts and figures to help me navigate conversations and several round of Jeopardy. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I can complete a thought that isn’t peppered with “Uh. . .what’s the word? Oh wait. . .I had something for this!”

The hours and minutes of my day are consumed like Ms. Pac-Man gobbling up pellets.  When I do find a snatch of time here and there, I like to do something that requires the minimum amount of brain power.  I’ll read a few random articles on BuzzFeed. I’ll click on a few pages of Funsubstance or random links my brother sends me that show humanity at it’s most ridiculous.  Exhibit A: The Smalls Family, which is a video where a Caucasian family communicates only using lyrics from the Notorious B.I.G. And like a dummy, I watched it.  Those are 3 minutes and 38 seconds I will never see again.  By allowing this video prime real estate in my consciousness, I’ve undoubtedly unseated something crucially important, something that I’ll need when the kids bring home the next round of math homework.  Can you believe we’re on geometry already? Rays, lines, line segments!  See! I knew it! I’m going to have to look this -ish up!

There are times when I work on some mental fitness, though. I started using Lumosity, which is an app that provides daily brain games to help you stay sharp.  I bought an algebra workbook from a used bookstore and began giving myself little quizzes on X+Y type problems.  At the very least, I would be well prepared when the girls started that realm of arithmetic.  I was determined to read the headlines of all sections of the paper and pick at least one artcile per section to read.  In the end, all of these things felt like work and were quickly discarded.

I found myself thumbing through my planner and came across a hastily scrawled list I had made — a bucket list.   One of the items read “to be fluent in French”.  I am a francophile through and through and realized, maybe this was the way I could stretch those synapses.  See,  I started taking French lessons when I was in the third grade. When I graduated from high school, it was with solid marks in AP French.  Foolish girl that I was, I figured, I’d put my time in with foreign languages, so I opted out of French class in college.  What could have been a collegiate cake-walk was replaced with things like Geology 101, Cultural Anthropology and African History from 1800 to the present (a class where I basically pumped in information long enough to regurgitate it back into a blue book for the midterm and final).

But, back to French.  I’ve toyed with getting Rosetta Stone program, but can never pull the trigger with that.  I’ve thought about enrolling in some classes at the university down the street, but like I said, my free time comes in snatches and I have yet to find an academic program — not even an online one — that allows you to work in non-consecutive snippets of 12-17 minutes.  I thought about hiring a tutor, but as it turned out, the girls were the ones who received the instruction.  That actually worked out well, though, because their introductory lessons served as a great review for me.  I could sprinkle fruits, vegetables, colors and numbers into our daily dialogue without it seeming like work for any of us.

The tutors lasted for a while, until we relocated several years ago.  The pursuit of bi-lingualism remained sidelined as I picked up kettle-bells, the girls tried lacrosse, soccer, swimming and gymnastics.  Ultimately, life got in the way. I unearthed some French language books, Googled Berlitz classes and bought some sing-a-long French CDs for the car in several failed attempts to kick my own butt into gear.  Several false starts before I stumbled upon this website called Duolingo.  I can’t even remember how I learned about it — must have read it in a magazine or something — but basically, it’s an online program that allows you to work in non-consecutive snippets of time.  Whenever you can, wherever you can, just practice.  You start with the basics and work your way up.  You strengthen certain vocabulary sets.  You type, you repeat, you translaste from English to French or French to English.  You can use a timer or go at your own pace.  It’s exactly what I needed.  I can see my progress because before, when I would speak French, I would always forget the word that would actually make the sentence make sense.  Ask me about colors, days of the week, time, animals, I’m your girl all day every day.  Ask me about anything else? It was the same “Uh. . .wait. . .what’s the word I’m looking for?”Or more like “Uh, un moment, s’il vous plaît. J’ai oublié ce que je veux dire.” 

In any event, I’m progressing nicely and have found a great motivator in The Hubs. He signed up to brush up on his Spanish.  Now we battle it out to see who has the longest s practice streak.  He recently unlocked the flirting module and is walking around saying some pretty blush inducing Spanish phrases.  Not to be outdone, I motored through adverbs and conjunctions so that I could spit out some hokey Chez vous où chez moi? type of flirtations.  Some things translate verbatim, some things sound much more romantic or sexy in another language  and others (I wish I were cross-eyed so I could look at you twice) just sound ridiculous no matter the language.

I’m determined to keep practicing online, on my iPad, and hopefully with some other French speakers when the opportunities present themselves.  I’m going to push out all that useless information (Mimi and Niko and a shower rod, anything Kardashian related, and who won season 7 of DWTS — it was Brooke Burke Charvet. You’re welcome) and parler le français sans problem!

What about you? Are you multi-lingual? Would you like to be?

 

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IN: ON: April 24, 2014 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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Do The Right Thing

In the locker room at the Y, I overheard several ladies talking about the shooting that occurred at the Jewish community center in Kansas.  The talk centered on the tragedy that left three people dead as well as the incredulity that someone like the alleged shooter has the capacity for such hate in these days and times.

The women, all of them in their late sixties and seventies and all of them White, then turned their discussion to their own experiences with racism, segregation and civil rights.  One woman was still surprised at how, when taking her daughter to camp in Goochland county during the 1970’s, the family spied a Klan gathering as they drove through the country side.  Another woman talked about her experiences with de-segregation of schools in Richmond, while a third recounted her first experience with an inter-racial couple.  Despite the casualness of our surroundings — it being a locker room and all — there usual air of levity was missing. These women were reporting histories, what they had observed.   I listened to the history lesson of sorts and continued to carry out my ministrations, heading to the shower.

When I returned to the locker room, the original group of women who had been talking had dispersed.  Another older woman was packing her bag when a friend of hers walked in.  They exchanged pleasantries and the first commented to the second how much she admired the latter’s snowy, bobbed hair. “It’s so lovely!” she gushed, “I bet people say that you look like Paula Deen.” The second woman thanked her and admitted that in fact, when her hair was longer, she was oft-mistaken for the chef and author.  She then went on to say how glad she was the Paula Deen had “gotten her life back on track” and “put all that nastiness behind her”.  The first woman nodded in response, saying “I mean, who among us hasn’t used that word.  Anyone who says they haven’t is a liar.”

“Oh, absolutely!” the second woman said, as she laced up her sneakers. “When we were kids, we said it all the time!”

At this point, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.  My heart started to beat a little bit faster and in my head, I was telling myself be calm.  I don’t know these women; they don’t know me. I doubt they even registered that I was there.  I’m sure they saw me, but I don’t think they saw me.  I told myself to give them the benefit of the doubt.  This conversation could abruptly shift in its nature, but I could feel myself getting prepared in the event it did not.

“What was it we used to say?” the second woman continued, pausing to recollect. “Oh, eenie-meenie-miny-mo,” at which point the first woman joined in, “catch a ni—

“Excuse me, ladies!” I turned to face them, half dressed and completely put out. “I don’t think that is an appropriate conversation to be having in here.  Thank you.”  And I looked at each of them very pointedly as they gawped at me like fish out of water.  There were no apologies from them, no words spilling from their mouths like milk from an upturned glass.  There was silence, followed by several murmurs and their prompt departure from the locker room.

Did I do the right thing?

Would they have self-edited and stopped before actually saying the n-word? Should I have let them finish and then verbally eviscerate them? And then what?  I’m never prepared when people pepper me with seemingly innocuous statements about my hair, my children’s parentage, or my own racial make-up.  What makes me sure I could have handled this situation in a decorous, yet scathing way that brokered no argument about the absolute impropriety of their discussion? I’m struck at the dichotomy between the incredulity the first group of women felt about the persistence of racism and the complete cavalier nature of the second group of women.  I wonder if there had been anyone else in the locker room at that time, would they have spoken up? Would they have continued in their routine and just shrugged past, chalked it up to two ol’ blue hairs talking nonsense? I hope that wouldn’t be the case, but if you plotted my hope in humanity on a graph, it would look more like a roller coaster than a beeline.

Have you had an experience like this? How did you handle it? Would you have done anything differently? Let’s talk in the comments.

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IN: ON: April 16, 2014 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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April 11th

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
—Mary Elizabeth Frye
It’s still not easy.
I want to pick up the phone and hear your voice.
I want to tell you how the girls love it when, after their bath, I stand them, wrapped in a robe, atop the toilet seat and dry them off, just as you did for me at that age.
I want to send you their drawings, and have you hear their adventures.
I want you to call them “doll”, and promise to send them fudge.
I want to see their faces light up when they get a “Just Because Card” in the mail from you and see two or three dollars flutter to the ground when they open it.
I want to hear you tell Mom and Dad to “be loving.”
I want to say, “Broken-down,” when you ask me how my broken-down brother is.
I want to sit on your couch, nursing the smallest can of ginger-ale I’ve never seen anywhere else but in your house, and have you tell me to look away when the daytime soap stars start doing the “hanky-panky”.
I want to make more memories with you.
I keep your recipe box on my kitchen counter and when I open the lid, I six years old.  I am standing in your kitchen, pulling Golden Grahams down from an overcrowded shelf. I am sneaking cellophane wrapped candy out of the walnut shaped candy dish on your coffee-table.  I am using your cane as a microphone stand while Donna Summer turns and turns on your record player.  I am counting the bottles of perfume on your dresser, wondering if you really use all 17.  I am sitting on the arm of the oversized armchair by the rotary phone, snapping open your address book and reading the names and numbers of your friends, our family written in your looping, slanted script.  I am taking the dialer out of the address book, holding it like the cigarettes you sneak out on the piazza.  I am standing next to you on the back piazza, as you call across the way to Jan, a cousin or some relation, and she marvels at how big I’ve gotten.  I am following you down to the basement where your landlady has a beauty shop and I am going to get my hair done; my hair is going to be “flat”.  I am bathed and dusted in Jean Naté, lying atop your chenille bedspread, watching the blades of the box fan blur into empty space until I fall asleep.
I want to make more memories, but instead,  I choose to share my memories of you with others.  I celebrate your sunrise, instead of your sunset.  I love you so.
Happy Birthday, Gram.
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IN: ON: April 11, 2014 BY: Hilary
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Short and to the Point

There are times when I’m just going about my daily business of being me that I have these lightening bolt ideas of things to write about (like grade school English grammar lessons such as not ending a sentence in a preposition, but I digress). Inevitably, I can’t find a pen or paper and the idea slides right on out of my brain. I think I write the way that I talk, which is kind of more of an “Wait, wait, let me tell you!” as opposed to something more methodical and deliberate.   By the time I actually get to the computer to write, I’ve got the vaguest hint of what it was that I wanted to share, but I can never truly wrap my fingers around it. The word diaphanous comes to mind.  So, I just start typing. One thing leads to another, and then another, and then I add some back story and then I’ve got a multi-paragraphed, photo enhanced entry.

Sadly, today isn’t one of those days.

There are several things that I need to be working on, none of which I want to be working on. I should have woken V up from her nap about 20 minutes ago.  I need to throw a snack together for the girls to have while they’re at piano lessons.  I’ve written and trashed about half a dozen other posts trying to be charming and witty.  I’ve putzed around online putting various clothing, shoes and household goods into a number of shopping carts without checking out.  I’ve gone to the bathroom about a ten times in the last half hour because I’m trying to drink more water.  FYI – drink 750 ml of water in less than 5 minutes, not the best idea.

Hang on. . .I’ll be right back. .

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IN: ON: April 9, 2014 TAGS: , , , , BY: Hilary
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Overload

There are days when I wish Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram and their cohorts would just disappear.  I am totally inundated with access to everything and everyone all the time.  While I choose to have accounts on several of those platforms, what started as a “Hmm, wonder what this is all about?” has become a “Wait, I didn’t refresh my feed!” and a “Oooh, let me tweet this real fast,” situation of embarrassing proportions.  Well, actually my ability to tweet is laughable, I’m so bad and inconsistent with it.  I blow by 140 characters way before I have even gotten to the point of the tweet.  I’m better with long form than short, but I digress.

I’m in my mid-thirties, so I remember a time (hold on, let me get in my rocking chair and adjust my cardigan), when in order to use the Internet, no one could be on the phone. And God forbid they picked up the phone while you were doing whatever it was on the World Wide Web — good-bye connection, back to dial up.

True story.

Ugh, it was so slow that the real reason why I wrote any of my college papers the minute I got home on break it took the entire break  to get the information! Now, you flip open your laptop and bingo! Instant access.

I read this article the other day that talked about how the prevalence of smartphones and other handheld devices is destroying the use of the Internet.  Think about it.  Pre-smart phone, when you wanted to know something, anything, you had to go to the computer and look it up.  Google is now a verb as a result.  Imagine if you watched “Purple Rain” and wanted to know if Apollonia really did jump into Lake Minnetonka, chances are, no one knew.  You’d have to wait until some reference materials were available to you.  Maybe you asked several people between the initial curiosity and the time it takes you to actually find out and guess what? They didn’t know either.  Maybe you see someone wearing a Purple Rain t-shirt and you ask them, “Hey, did she really jump into that lake?” and they’re like, “Dude, I got this shirt at a yard sale.” Maybe you just didn’t know until it was the answer on Final Jeopardy one night.

She really did jump  into the lake, by the way.  I looked it up.

All I’m saying is that now, you could be at work or at home or anywhere in between and when your synapses fire in a such a way that you must know the who won the 4th Season of Dancing With the Stars, you don’t have to wait.  You can look it up and be smarter (or not) for having gotten the answer. If there was a record of the random queries I pose to Siri, I would need the floor to open up and just swallow me (no, I’m not going to give you an example.  Suffice it to say a lot of them involve grammar, cartoons, and bodily functions).

Why is it that when my daughters ask me to define words, explain photosynthesis and list the Bill of Rights, I come up short? I know these things, but I can’t explain them.  I can define words by using context clues, but my 6 year old doesn’t know what context clues are. I’d have to define that first.  When the girls have questions that need straight-up textbook answers, I’m always like, “Hmm, let’s go look that up,” and we open the laptop. I kind of miss the encyclopedia and other desk references known as books.  I definitely felt pangs of nostalgia last week when M had an assignment to memorize the Psalm 23 for religion class and was instructed to look at YouTube videos for additional resources.

I need to break up with my devices. I’ve got a MacBook, an iPhone and an iPad.  I carry them around with me, sometimes all three, usually just the iPhone though.  It has become an extension of my arm.  I have gone into straight Amber Alert panic when I can’t find the phone, and while I know I’m not the only one who has busted a U-turn to go home and the phone when it’s been noticed that it’s missing, that makes me sad.  I read this article talking about the grossest items in your house and the phone and iPad were right up there because people take them into the bathroom.  Go ahead and make the connection. . . .I’ll wait. . .  Yeah.  Bathroom germies on your hands, on your touch screens, some of which you hold up to your face.  Blerg! And yet, I caught myself — yeah I do it, too.

Have you ever heard the term FOMO? Fear of Missing Out?  Yikes! And yet, I’m doing it. I’m firing up Instagram and Twitter and all the apps! I’m giving in to the FOMO!  I actually participated in the live tweet session for Scandal last week and ended up having to watch the episode again because I was so busy reading tweets!  I’ve talked before about how I wonder if we do things for the pleasure of doing them or for the satisfaction that comes with receiving “likes” and notifications when we post status reports and photos of those very activities. I’m guilty of it, too.   The pervasiveness of social media, apps, the Internet! I love it and I hate it!  I have carried my iPad around the house with me while I did various things. I frequently get on Tumblr and Pinterest for fashion ideas, recipes and crafts when I could just open a magazine, a cookbook, or my own arts and craps bucket.  I’m in a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  I gave it up for Lent last year. I gave it up prior to Lent this year just because I needed a break. I check into Facebook maybe once or twice a day. I have my blog automatically synced up so I don’t have to log-in to post, but I no longer keep the window open or myself logged in for any extended period of time.  When I deactivated my account last month, people thought I had un-friended them.  The idea that I voluntarily put my account on hold didn’t even come up as an option.  Ugh, Facebook!  I need it for work, but sometimes, I’m over saturated with the amount of infomraiton that is so easily accessible to me about the lives of my friends and colleagues.  And sometimes, I get a little too excited when I see a notification.  Not as excited as this post I read on FML :

“Today, I got a text message. My phone was sitting on the edge of the bed and set on vibrate, so it fell off. I reached down to grab my phone and fell off the bed. My Macbook landed on top of me. I fractured my arm and broke my laptop to read a text from Facebook.“

Yeah, that’s a sign to take a break.

 

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IN: ON: April 3, 2014 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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Lap? Length? Lesson Learned.

I really look forward to my twice weekly swim.  It’s been a nice change of pace from the grind I put in on the machines in the fitness center.  While I have been working on the Couch to 5K and feeling very proud of not passing out after fifteen minutes, I definitely feel stronger after getting in a good swim.

What I also enjoy about swimming is the camaraderie that comes with suiting up.  Just like with membership on any team, you become privy to inside jokes, sport related jargon and things that irritate life long swimmers (i.e. poor lane sharing etiquette, not knowing the difference between circle and split, choosing the appropriate lane for your skill level, etc.).

The other day, I was talking with some ladies in the locker room, doing a post-swim debrief, as it were.  We were comparing the number of laps we do, the amount of time it takes us, the variety we throw into the routines and so forth.  One lady mentioned how she was having a slow day, so she only did backstroke for several lengths.

“Well, is a length equal to a lap?” I asked. “I go down the lane and come back. Is that a lap or a length?”

“Ohhhh!” another woman chimed in, “they’re totally different!”

And with that, I learned the difference between a lap, a length, the pros and cons of fins, and secrets related to swimming.  A lap, I was told, was the distance down the lane and back again. If you end where you started, that’s one lap.  A length, on the other hand, is the swimming the length of the pool one time.  32 laps or 64 lengths is equal to one mile.  I had been doing several drills in 10 rep increments for a total of 30 laps, which is 60 lengths, and just a touch short of one mile.  My first set of 10 laps involved me doing the backstroke with fins down and the crawl or freestyle, with fins, back.  The second set of 10 laps found me doing backstroke, without fins.  Finally, I alternated backstroke and freestyle, no fins for 10 laps (freestyle on the odd, backstroke on the even).  It’s been working well for me; I come out of the pool thoroughly exhausted and feeling like a million bucks.

After comparing notes with the other swim ladies, they urged me to just suck it up and tack on another 2 laps (or would that be 4 lengths) to reach that mile.  One super eager swim supporter followed it up by saying that by doing so, I’m practically triathlon ready!  Slow down there, Speed Racer.  I’m doing laps, but I have to pause for the cause between lengths, adjust the goggles, and fast forward to the next upbeat song on my waterproof iPod.  I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating — The Hubs really gets Hubby of the year for gifting me with the waterproof iPod for Christmas. That little device is a game changer when it comes to helping me make it through the last few laps (or lengths).  Of course, it’s easier to sing along when you’re doing backstroke as opposed to the freestyle.  And let me tell you, nothing will get you stroking fast than that wicked beat from Black Skinhead by Kanye West (sidenote: the lyrics are bursting with expletives, so turn your speakers down).  Those drums kick in and I’m all “Missy Franklin, who?!”

Maybe I am 1/3 triathlon ready.  With the Couch to 5k program, I may just be 2/3 ready.  Now to find someone with a bike. . .

 

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IN: ON: April 3, 2014 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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