Festive Coffee Date!
Hooray! EVERYTHING is festive in December, right? Decorations and lights are everywhere. Even going to the bank feels like a special occasion. I’m linking up with Coco and Deborah for this festive December Coffee Date. Get out your holiday mugs and let’s get started! Unfortunately, the first thing I would share over coffee is NOT festive. Just as my rib was starting to feel much better, I hurt my back. Yep- I innocently bent down (<= bad idea) to move the frickin coffee table, and my low back has been very sore ever since. Ironically, on this week’s episode of the Happier podcast, Gretchen gave herself a demerit for doing the same thing. Well, she wasn’t moving her coffee table. But it sounds like the same situation- leaning forward with the back rounded screws everything up. This is an ongoing issue I’m always aware of, but ironically my back had been feeling PERFECT ever since I fell in my race. Hitting the ground seemed to jolt everything into place, kind of like a chiropractic adjustment. I guess my back was feeling so good, I forgot to be careful. Luckily I can still run, so I don’t consider this a Serious Problem. But it’s made my life seriously uncomfortable this week. (Obviously, what I need to do is throw myself onto the ground as hard as I can to give myself another adjustment, right? If there were any chiropractors reading this, they would probably be screaming right now.) On to the good news. Our weather has been AMAZING. I know it’s been cold and miserable up north, but I’m not going to apologize. We suffered through a long hot summer, but even worse, we sweltered through the fall, while everyone else was posting photos of beautiful foliage. We paid our dues, and now it’s our time to shine. Oh yes- THIS is why I live in Florida! I almost forgot. Speaking of forgetting… I got two advent calendars this year, and I forgot about BOTH of them until yesterday. Oops. Here’s the first one: I’m opening two doors a day until I’m caught up! One of today’s surprises was mini-cards. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with them, but they’re cute! The other advent calendar has cat treats. I don’t know how we’ll get caught up with that one, because I don’t want our cats- who are already “festively plump”- to have more than one packet of treats a day. We might have to just start where we are, and open some “bonus” doors after Christmas. Do you have an advent calendar? Who wants to come down to Florida for a blogger meetup in February? – I’ll be meeting up with at least three, and possibly four bloggers (oooh! I wonder who they could be!!!)
Reading, Eating, and Rosacea Update
First things first! Last week I posted a “cry for help” with my rosacea. That same day, I ordered this product from Amazon: This woman looks even worse than me! At least I don’t have it on my FOREHEAD. (Or, maybe that’s what I have to look forward to…) Anyway, I picked this particular product because it contains sulphur. Some people mentioned there’s a prescription face wash for rosacea that contains sulphur, and it really helps- but from what I understand, you will smell like sulphur. I cannot smell weird with the job I have. But this product has a much smaller amount of sulphur, and the reviews were positive so I decided to try it. IT WORKS. My face looks so much better! I mean- it’s not perfect (that’s okay- I gave up on perfect long ago.) But it got me out of the category where people feel the need to ask me what’s wrong, so I’m really happy (and- it does not have an odor.) Noemi also did a post about rosacea, and she recommended another cream that I’m going to try as well. One thing I’ve found is that something will work for a while but then stop working, so I’m going to try rotating different things. Let’s move on! I actually read TWO books during November, which is huge for me during NaBloPoMo. The first was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and the second was Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh. I enjoyed Tied up in Tinsel so much that I’m reading another book by Ngaio Marsh, one that I picked up a couple months ago at the used bookstore. I’m REALLY enjoying this one! It was written in 1958, and the premise is, a murderer is on board a ship sailing from England to South Africa. It’s a cargo ship, with accommodations for nine passengers, and one of those nine is the culprit (the way this is set up is just barely plausible.) Inspector Roderick Alleyn, Marsh’s series detective, is on board to find the guilty one. I love mysteries with a closed circle (where everyone is snowed in, on a train, or contained somehow or other.) Ngaio Marsh is sometimes compared to Agatha Christie. I would say Marsh’s characters are more fleshed out and the writing is better in general- but no one can write an ending like Christie. Marsh does a respectable job though. When I finish this book, I’ll be at 50 for the year! I’ve set this goal over and over again and always fall short, because I usually don’t read any books during NaBloPoMo. This year, I front loaded my reading in the first three quarters, and managed to read two books in November. I also should mention that four of the books I read were LONG- around 1000 pages (the three books of Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, and Stephen King’s 11/22/63. I imagine I’ll read a couple more books in December when I finish the Marsh- so overall I’m very happy with this year of reading! Eating…. ugh. I’m in eating jail until I recover from Thanksgiving. I ate way too much bread, sugar (even though I tried to avoid it- it crept into things like salad dressing and rolls) and rich foods in general. My stomach let me know that it is NOT HAPPY. Here’s how my dinners are going to look this week: Do you set a reading goal for the year? Do you need to recover from Thanksgiving?
Life After NaBloPoMo
Not publishing a blog post today felt really weird! December 1st was a Sunday, so I did my usual Weekly Rundown. Today- December 2nd- was the first time in 31 days I didn’t post It was definitely a relief not to worry about writing on Sunday… because that day was SO busy. I originally thought I would tackle the outdoor Christmas lights, but that was preposterous. Indoors, we had the tree up but other than that all the fall decor was still out. No, no, no! It’s December! The house must be Christmas-ed! It was a huge job, but that’s what happens when you’re a lunatic. I have… a lot of fall decorations. Including things like hand towels, pajamas, a shower curtain, napkins… all these things have to be washed before they can be put away. Then, the Christmas things! I finished the pet tree: Why, yes. We do have a little tree for the pets. And obviously Muffin and Charlotte have their own stockings. (The little critters also have stockings, but they’re much smaller and not monogrammed. I have to draw the line somewhere.) I got my daughter’s bathroom put together: And then there were the nutcrackers, nativity scenes, and all the rest. I don’t NEED anything new, but I did get a couple things at Target this year. I think calico cats must be a trending Christmas theme: Just as I’m allowed to get something new for Halloween if it has a black cat on it, I think I’m fully justified in buying any calico cat-Christmas decor. And like all that wasn’t enough, before my son left on Saturday he said “You know my birthday’s a week from tomorrow.” WHAT??? Well, this is what happens when Thanksgiving is so frickin late– I’m all confused. His birthday is December 8th, but I usually have a LITTLE more time after Thanksgiving to prepare. So, on Sunday I ran out to Barnes and Noble to get him a couple presents (I got him Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter, which I’m hoping he’ll read, love, and bring home at Christmas so I can read it too) AND I made a batch of cinnamon rolls, from scratch. It’s a birthday tradition, and I’ve mailed him his rolls every year since he’s been in college. So… yes. I was happy not to have to worry about a blog post on top of everything else! Now all I have to do is buy and wrap all the presents, bake all the cookies, and put up the outdoor lights. Ack. Are you ready for December? If you celebrate Christmas, is your house decorated?
Weekly Rundown
What a week- it was a whirlwind! My son was home, which made it feel like one long party. A party where I had to cook, clean, and, oh yes, go to work. Let’s just say workouts weren’t the main focus of the week- but I did have some nice runs! Thanks as always to Kim and Deborah for hosting the Weekly Rundown. Let’s just see how it all played out… Monday The week started out with a 3 mile run in BEAUTIFUL weather. Remember the rib injury? It’s so much better. When I’m running, the pain is more of a nuisance now than a limiting factor. But I still can’t find any core work I can comfortably do, which is a bummer. Still- I’m definitely getting there. Tuesday Leg day at home! Since I only had my dumbbells and not the heavier weights I use at the gym, I did a lot of single leg moves, like Bulgarian split squats. I haven’t done those in a while, and it was hard! Wednesday 3 mile run. Somehow I neglected to get a photo??? I don’t know how that happened, but my mind was probably elsewhere. We did a lot of cooking on this day, AND decorated our Christmas tree! Thursday Happy Thanksgiving! I started the day with a lovely 5 mile run. The rest of the day was all about cooking, eating, and watching football (OMG BEARS! Ugh, Dolphins.) It was a really, really nice day. Friday Day off. It was Black Friday, and the rest of my family spent the day at home, lounging around and eating leftovers while I went to work. I wanted a treat, so I slept in a little and then went to Starbucks before heading to work. I thought I would do some strength work later on, but that was clearly a ridiculous notion, because at night we had… …the high school football game! It was the regional championship game and we WON! Next week… state semi-finals. How exciting! Saturday Okay, seriously. Time to get back to real life. 4 mile run before work. It felt good and I even threw in some speed work. I KNOW! I’m tempting fate, but I have to do something- I’m tired of being the tortoise. Sunday Usually Sunday is my day off, but I’d like to do some upper body strength since that was completely lacking this week. I also have to get our outdoor Christmas lights up! My rib is better just in time- two weeks ago I couldn’t even imagine standing on a ladder and reaching above my head. How was your week? Were you able to focus on workouts, or were you distracted? If you decorate for Christmas- are your outdoor lights up?