Oceandirt's Blog

This is the quilt I made for my mother-in-law for mother's day.



And here is Julia, pre-loading the quilt with hugs and cuddles.




I named the quilt "An Angel Among Us." Apparently Margaret has always wanted me to make her an angel quilt, and these are her colors. I quilted it with hearts, and hid some butterflies around too (there is a species of butterfly called "Julia" so I thought that would be cool). The stripy border is called a "piano key" border and I thought that was fitting since Margaret is a pianist. The back is also quite pretty, with blue and pink wisteria vines. Bob and Julia "commissioned" the quilt, I designed and made it (I didn't design the angel...I used a pattern for that), and it is in the mail on the way to Margaret now.

I sent MY mother a coupon for one free quilting job. Conveniently, she already sent me a quilt she wanted quilted, so I thought that would be good.

Well, I was very wrong about my MRI. That's why people need TRAINING to interpret complicated MRI printouts! Not just GUESSING. LOL According to the MRI report:

1) There is posterior tibial tendinopathy and linear longitudinal partial tear with associated tenosynovitis and soft tissue inflammation
2) Sinus tarsi edema consistent with synovitis or sinus tarsi syndrome. Small subtalar joint effusion is also noted
3) Plantar heel spur. No evidence for stress fracture.

I knew about the heel spur. I had quite a lot of problems with this foot 5 years or so ago, with a heel spur and plantar fasciitis. I do stretch it regularly still because of this and haven't had pain in the plantar area for a while. NO evidence of a stress fracture though. So the pain is associated with a tear of the tendon. No wonder it hurts. It is a sharp pain, almost like a burning sensation which I guess makes sense if it is a tear. I looked up some of the other terms. Tenosynovitis is inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath around the tendon. "Edema" and "effusion" both mean fluid leaking in the wrong places (due to the inflammation?). Sinus tarsi syndrome is pain and inflammation in a particular area of the ankle, and 70% of the time it is associated with a "turning out" ankle sprain. It can also be caused by overuse. Mine is probably a combination of the two, because it was likely a "turning out" event that tore the tendon too. My feet kind of tend to turn out on their own, and when I'm not doing taekwondo I wear custom orthotics inside my shoes that keep this from happening. But barefoot there aren't any custom orthotics! Tendinopathy is basically just swelling and pain associated with the tear, but may also mean "micro tears" associated with overuse, which is probably the case for me.

Anyway I guess it is a good thing I had the MRI. When I thought I'd diagnosed it as a stress fracture I figured a good x-ray would have sufficed, but I guess not.

The treatment for now is to stop "all" exercise and to wear a tall walking boot which stops just below my knee. I did call the doctor back and ask the receptionist to clarify for me did "all" exercise include swimming? Because I would like to keep up something, so I got permission to swim laps, thank goodness. I got the walking boot yesterday afternoon and it is a pain in the rear. It is tight (duh, that's the point) but probably tighter on my calf because of my weight, so the top of it rubs and hurts. It also makes my knee want to flex backwards with each step, so I'm afraid I'll come out of this with an okay ankle but a bum knee. I'm trying to be very careful, and I have made arrangements to borrow a cane from a friend to see if I put some weight on a cane might it not flex my knee the wrong way. I can't just not walk around. I mean even just walking around the house it is hurting me. I'll get the cane this afternoon. I may borrow a crutch from my neighbor too and see which works best. One of my concerns is that I have to park kind of far away from the pool at the college, in a "commuter" lot, and have quite a hike from the car to the pool. So I want to make that easier.

I officially froze my taekwondo membership for 3 months. We'll see after that. I'm going to not freeze my gym membership, because I'd like to try to keep doing upper body weight-lifting. My doctor specifically said no yoga (when I asked about swimming I also asked about yoga or other classes at the gym that aren't as intensive). But I think it will be worth keeping the membership for upper body weight lifting. My gym also has a stationary bicycle that you do with your arms instead of your legs, and I'll try that out.

In other news, I worked frantically yesterday trying to finish a quilt for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. It has turned out really cute. I will post some pictures soon. I have to go finish the binding so I can get it in the mail today and get it to her in time. It has an angel on it and I quilted some butterflies and hearts. I think she'll like it. It is meant to be a lap quilt and to go to the hospital with her when she goes for treatments and things. If I finish the binding in the next hour I may wash and dry it once so that I can tell her it washes and dries well and she doesn't have to worry about that.

Okay. I laid two pins there, pointing to what I think looks like an incomplete crack, which is at both sides but not meeting in the middle. Is that what it looks like to you? As far as I can tell from my total lack of knowing what I'm looking at, this is the medial malleolus bone, which is exactly where my pain is.

More info coming soon!

Today I had an MRI of my ankle. The prescription looks to me like it says "rule out 1) PTTD 2) Stress Fracture Medial Malleolus."

PTTD is Posterior Tibial Tendon Dysfunction, which is (obviously) a tendon problem with the tendon that is on the inside of your ankle. The Medial Malleolus is the bony doodad that sticks out on the inside of your ankle. My pain has been indicative of both at any given time so who knows? At the beginning (back in November) the pain was very much textbook PTTD pain. Right now it is almost textbook medial malleolus fracture pain. They will send a report to my doc in a couple of days (I'm guessing Tuesday or Wednesday next week). However, they sent me home with the MRI pictures, which I've been looking at trying to see if I can see anything. I have no idea what to look for for the tendon thing, but I do know what a fracture looks like, having had one before (the outside bone of this same foot as a matter of fact, 18 years ago). In certain pictures I think I can see a hairline fracture right in the area where my pain is. I did some googling of this condition and interestingly, it is very common for ankle stress fractures to go about 6 months before being diagnosed. Partly this is because without proper treatment the fracture can get larger (and therefore probably more painful). It sometimes doesn't show up in an initial X-ray but shows up in one 6 months later, which I thought was very interesting since it has been almost exactly six months since the pain began. Also at the beginning the pain can be more generalized, whereas later it is more "pinpoint pain." Which is EXACTLY what has happened to me. My pain has been in several different places and only in the last two weeks or so has it been pinpoint right on that thing that sticks out of the inside of my ankle. So, Bob and I (after studying the pictures this evening) have tentatively diagnosed me with a stress fracture. Ha! We'll see what the report says in a few days. It is also quite possible that I have both things, since one can contribute to the other.

I want to know NOW. Anyone know a good radiologist who will read my MRI for free? LOL I'm going to try to find a way to post the picture later.

I got weighed and measured at the gym today. Kathee, one of the trainers, has agreed to weigh and measure me each month to keep me accountable and help me figure out how to change up my workouts to keep having success. So today was the 4th month she's done this. As of today, from my highest, I have lost 15 pounds. But what she was more impressed with, is that I have lost 20 inches when you add hips, waist, abdomen, chest, shoulders, thighs. And my body fat has gone down by 6.6. Kathee was so happy that she went to the owner of the gym and asked him if she could give me a special t-shirt. He went in the back room and got me a "I Lost It" shirt. It is aqua blue, my favorite color. Anyway this was a fun visit! I also asked Kathee to show me a couple of new machines, so we added two upper body and two leg machines to my workout. I haven't been able to do much else besides ride the stationary bike and weight lift in the last two weeks because everything else hurts my ankle (classes, treadmill, elliptical, etc). So it will be nice to have a couple of new machines to add in to shake things up. I'm going to try to get to a yoga class on Friday and see if that hurts or not. Kathee keeps telling me yoga will change my life. So far it just convinces me that yoga was NOT meant for overweight people. But maybe that's how it is supposed to change me!

I lost a pound this week. This makes for a total of 14.4 pounds. I'm definitely making progress. Slow and steady wins the race, right? I also saw my foot doctor today. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say I need an MRI to really figure out what is happening. First I have to get insurance pre-authorization for the MRI, then go have it, then wait a couple days for it to be read and reported back to the foot doc. He is a podiatrist, and he said depending on the results he may send me to an orthopedist for a second opinion. I'm hoping I can at least get the MRI done by the end of this week or early next week. I'd like to have the results back in time to freeze my taekwondo membership by mid-May if that's what I need to do. I asked him should I stop now. For now, the doc said "If you can stand it, keep going. If it is unbearable, stop." Some classes are bearable and some aren't and it is hard to know in advance which is which. Once he's seen the MRI results then we'll decide what to do. In the last week or so, there is nothing I do that doesn't hurt, including swimming. So something is definitely going on in there. He said there is a chance it is a stress fracture higher in the ankle than the previous X-ray could see, or it is a tear of the tendon, or it could be both for that matter. Hopefully I'll know something soon.

Today was "Take Your Child to Work" day at Bob's company. They do an awesome program, where the kids do lots of experiments (both chemistry and biology). That was was actually a game about how to make a drug. It worked kind of like Mastermind, where you made a guess at what the shape of the molecule was, and you paid the biologist $100 to tell you if it was right. He or she would say "you have two pieces right but only one in the right place" and so you have to pay to guess again. This is kind of how they test new drug possibilities so it is a good lesson for the kids! This shows that Julia and I guessed right and then got paid for the completed molecule.



This was a really cool experiment where we tested water, a glucose solution (those two were our controls), and two liquids which were either milk or "lactaid" milk to see the glucose content. Using our results we answered some questions to determine which of the two liquids was milk. We learned how lactase breaks glucose down to lactose and how come people who are lactose-intolerant can then drink lactaid milk without having problems. It was pretty interesting and we got to do a bunch of little test strip things.



One of our experiments involved prisms. We used regular prisms and these "hollow" prisms which were filled with different colored liquids. We shined white, blue, and red lights through them to see what would happen and what colors came out the other side. It was a colorful experiment!




This was MY favorite experiment. It was an experiment about surface tension. We warmed up some milk for 30 seconds in the microwave, and we put 4 drops of different colors of food coloring in it. As you can see, they kind of stayed separated (the surface tension of the milk keeping firm enough that they didn't really mix). Then we dropped ONE DROP of dish detergent right in the middle of the bowl and then it did THIS:


So, the detergent broke the surface tension and allowed the whole thing to mix up.

We did several other things but that's enough for now! Julia did okay. She overheated at one point and I had to remove her from the room and go to a cold room for her to recuperate. They were doing a simulated HIV test there, which really looked interesting but we missed most of that one. Anyway it was all very cool and very scientific. I think 80 kids participated this year! Wow! The oldest kids did shadowing projects where they worked more one-on-one in the lab with scientists. Bob did that with some kids in the morning, but then he played with Julia's group in the afternoon. All in all a pretty good day.

See the swelling on the right ankle? The pain is suddenly worse again over the last week or so. I don't know if it is our new instructor having us do more spinning kicks (which I've been only doing in one direction, the direction where most of my weight is on the other foot) or if it is just too much activity in general, but the pain has now gotten unbearable again. I could barely walk Tuesday morning (after taekwondo Monday night I guess). I skipped class last night and again tonight due to not wanting to make the pain worse. So this swelling today is just after a somewhat normal day of walking around on it, pushing Julia around at "Take your Child to Work Day" which I'll post about shortly, and a day where I didn't exercise or go to the gym or anything...

Perhaps I'll go just to the "weapons" class on Saturday at the sister school. That class won't put much stress on the ankle and will allow me to learn the next bit of the new Bahng Mahng Ee form I'm learning this cycle. I made an appointment for Monday to see the ortho again and see if we can do something like an MRI to see if there is a tear. If it were just tendonitis I believe it should be getting better, not worse. Now my fear is that it IS a tear and I'll need surgery. Not sure how I could do that. And it would definitely mean the end of taekwondo for the foreseeable future. Hopefully I'll know more next week. I guess there is a possibility he could do a cortizone shot in the "new" area that hurts worst now and maybe that would make things better. Because the area where he shot me in December has zero pain now. More to come...

That's what my driveway looks like right now. Cute, huh? Today they broke it up (asphalt over concrete which apparently was about 8 inches thick). Tomorrow they will cart it away and put down gravel, then asphalt.

The funniest thing happened tonight, though. I was leaving for taekwondo, and of course my van was parked on the street. So I'm walking to my van carrying my TKD bag, wearing my full uniform, and there is a family walking by on their evening walk. The man says, "Hey! What did ya do? Get mad and karate chop up your driveway??" It was hilarious.

Fortunately I was gone all day and didn't have to listen to the breakup. It looked to me like they actually broke it up with sledgehammers. Two guys. Man that is hard work.

At TKD tonight it was just me and Dr. N. We did lots of calisthenics, jumping jacks, pushups (60 tonight), 50 crunches, etc. A good workout for sure. Then we went over that white belt form we learned monday, and then went over the yellow and orange belt forms also. In the "new" system yellow comes before orange (which is true in many traditions because in theory your belt gets darker and darker. They say in the old old days everyone's belt was white. But by the time you'd learned so much it was grimy and black.). Anyway it was a good class. We did do some spin jump side kicks which tweaked my ankle. It really hurts worse today. I am definitely calling the ortho tomorrow and having him look at it again or maybe do an MRI. I have to know if I just need to stop all activity for a while or if I've done permanent damage. :-( I also went to the daytime class at the sister-school today and it was really great. There were 10 of us and a good class. I really like that group of people, especially Karla, Karen, and Susan V. Fun group.

I decided today that we have to do something different with Julia's new wheelchair. It is just too hard to get her in and out around that headrest. It makes her LOOK great. Very straight and taller and she is comfortable IN it. But the getting in and out is nearly impossible for one person to do without hurting her neck and so I'm going to make them figure out an alternative. The PT will be in on Friday and we can talk about it. I thought of a great way to fix it but it involves a hacksaw and some hinges. Not sure they'll want to go that route! But as it is now, I am certain Bob wouldn't even want to ever try to take Julia anywhere by himself and that isn't acceptable. It has to be user friendly or we just won't use it. Sigh. Here's a pic of her in it. It really helps her sit so nice and straight. I like that part a lot! I'll need to post a pic from her old chair too for comparison. Oh did I mention the new chair doesn't fit through the door to the taekwondo school, which meets on a racquetball court? Sigh.



I'll try to find a pic of her from the same angle in the old chair tomorrow.

Tonight was the first night of class under our new owner/instructor at my dojahng. He taught classes last week but was waiting to make changes until after our belt testing last Thursday (at which I passed my third midterm). So tonight was pretty interesting. We started with 5 laps of the room (thankfully in this case it is a pretty small room which I hate for other reasons but for lap purposes is nice). 25 jumping jacks, 25 squats, "three" pushups on his count where we spelled out o-n-e-t-w-o-t-h-r-e-e so that was really 11 of them, done really slowly where you can't let your stomach touch in the down position. Then 10 more on our own count. 25 sit ups. Then some split-stretching and other stretching. At class we had one brown belt (the teenaged girl) and two black belts (myself and Dr. N who is a 2nd degree). Mr. H said he was going to take us back to the basics, so we went over very basic punches and blocks that he would teach to beginners. We did them up and back across the floor, and we worked hard on hand rotation. We all three had trouble with the loads and rotations, so basics was a good thing. Most of these things Mr. H's organization does the same as ours (for colored belts, the two-handed load thing which it sounds like you even do as a black belt in his org). The one that was different was a vertical spearhand, where instead of your off hand being in a fist by your side, it is supporting the spearhand (the location being similar to how we shake hands with the other arm underneath). That was hard to get used to. We did reverse punches, knifehands, spearhands, inner and outer forearm blocks, double knifehand blocks, square blocks, and a double outer forearm block which does load differently than in ATA (starts out looking like an X block). It was nice to do some basics. Then we did lots of kicks against pads (front, side, round, spin crescent which I can only do on one side due to my ankle). More situps and pushups, 25 each I believe. Then we learned a form. This is the white belt form for his organization (I guess I should start saying "our" organization?) and it has 19 moves. It is a bit easier to remember than the Songahm forms because you do the same thing in four directions, then another thing in four directions. I think I could do it again by myself after just going through it twice tonight. He is going to teach us all the colored belt forms, which should be interesting. In his org, you don't break boards until you are a red belt!! And it is always wood, not plastic. In addition he is going to make some uniform changes. We won't be required to buy new uniforms, but the way his works is that basic people wear white. Black Belt club has the option of wearing black, and leadership can wear red, black or white or any combination of the above (for instance red pants and black top, white pants and red top, etc). So far this is the change I like the most because I've always thought taekwondo and white pants just don't mix well. lol I will probably buy a black uniform eventually. Also he's doing away with stripes on belts. All the colored belts will be plain and your uniform denotes if you are black belt club or leadership.

He's trying not to make too many changes all at once and scare people off. Like I said in my last blog post, I have the option of continueing the ATA curriculum at the sister school. I really don't know what I want to do at this point. If I'm going to change "schools" I really ought to consider trying the one that is a mile from my house instead of the one that takes 15 mins (mine) or 30 mins (the sister school). But there is the loyalty issue and the competition issue. If I want to keep competing in ATA I will have to continue going to the sister school fairly frequently, which is really a waste of driving time (kind of harsh to say it, but it is). I guess I'll give this a few weeks and see what happens and then think about what I want to do. Right now I can't compete due to my ankle anyway, but I'm hoping that isn't a permanent problem...

In other news I lost a pound this week for a total of 12.4 since mid February. After the 3 pounds last week during my super duper exercise week, a pound doesn't seem like much but as long as the trend is downward I'm happy. I didn't exercise every day this past week. My ankle was very sore from overuse the previous week and I took it a bit easy! Back to the grind this week though!

Julia got her new wheelchair! Only 9 months of fights with insurance! And then before the afterglow wore off we got another denial today of the formula which they say they won't pay for because it isn't a prescription, even though it is fed through a feeding tube. So now back to that fight which I thought we won 6 months ago. Argh! And this, after they weaseled out of paying for the wheelchair, which they foisted off on a government program! Apparently a child like Julia is just supposed to starve to death to make them happy.

Hm. Now I have to think of another topic because that last paragraph isn't a good way to end. Check this out!



That's finches at my finch feeder, which I've really enjoyed this week. I like the goldfinches best but this time of year the purple finches (or house finches I can never tell which is which since they both have red breasts) are so pretty too. So that is one of each, sharing a meal. The gold finch is kind of camouflaged! Last year at my safflower feeder I had a red-breasted grosbeak, which I'd never seen before! So I'm hoping he'll come back this year on his migration, remembering the yummy feeder he found! Here's a pic of him from last year.



Okay that's about enough for tonight. Tomorrow I am exercising in the morning and going out to eat in the evening. No bell rehearsal this week so we get a night on the town instead.

Ahhh, my jump start week has officially ended. It didn't end exactly as planned however. Julia's nurse has the flu so I couldn't do today's end-of-the-week planned activities. The saddest part of that is that after a morning of final exercise today I had planned an hour-long full-body massage. DARN IT! Well, after the nurse called this morning I called the gym and asked them to ask the massage therapist if Julia could tag along on her best behavior. It was approved. So we got there a few minutes early and Julia laid on a blanket on a yoga mat in the corner and watched me get a massage. She seemed to enjoy it. It was dark-ish with candles and interesting music (with birds chirping occasionally). She was very happy and hardly made a peep. I am so glad I got the massage. It was a nice way to end the week!



Yes she used rocks, but she didn't really place them there, but used them TO massage some which felt really nice since they were hot.

Yesterday, I did 30 mins of bicycle riding and elliptical, then 45 minutes of weight training, then 45 minutes of whacking a racquetball around the racquetball court. Then ate lunch then 40 minutes of swimming, and I went to a taekwondo class later in the evening. So I did really well. I wish I could keep up this level of exercise, because I lost almost 3 pounds since last friday! But alas, it is back to real life next week where I have to accomplish other things besides exercise. Like work. Like life. LOL

In other news, we have a new taekwondo instructor. He seems okay. He's going to make a lot of changes. It sounds like we'll be gradually dumping the other curriculum and changing over to a different way. I can still get the old curriculum at the sister school and use my school for exercise and techniques. I have to admit it is kind of exciting thinking about learning totally different forms, since I'm somewhat bored with mine. The downside is that his focus is less on weapons and more on forms. On the other hand his favorite weapon and the only one he will teach actual forms on is the Bo staff, which I happen to really like. If worse comes to worse, I will just transfer permanently to the sister school but I hate to do that since it takes me nearly 30 minutes to get there, which makes for an hour of travel for 45 minutes of exercise which seems kind of dumb. Oh well. More to come on that topic! I am going to give this guy a really good chance. He seems like a good guy and he is very motivated to keep the school running.

I'm off to go plan a quilt. I haven't touched any quilting in a full week now!

That was me this morning. Okay, not exactly. But I did a walk-n-weights class where we walked laps on the indoor track, then did work with weight bars, hand weights, pilates kind of stuff with a giant ball



(am I the only one who feels like I'm always about to fall off?) and lots of lunges and things. Then more laps, etc. I think we walked about a mile. Someone told me that 8 times around the indoor track is a mile. I wasn't counting but I think we did at least 8. The killer part was the lunges though. So far every class I've taken is big on lunges. My thighs seem to get the best workout. The class was good but also frustrating. Even walking my very fastest I can walk without killing my ankle, I was the slowest walker and always got back to the basketball court very last. We did all the other stuff on the basketball court which has a very hard surface. Pushups too. Ouch. We did have mats but still. As soon as class was over I threw all the weights, balls, mats, etc into the proper bins and literally speed walked out the door to get to the daytime taekwondo class in time. 25 minutes of transit then 45 minutes of pretty decent exercise there. A stop to drop off paperwork at my magic insurance helper, then I stopped to pick up one of these:



Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever seen? I borrowed it for the weekend (maybe longer) to try with Julia. She can't sit up in a chair like that but I have rigged her emergency car seat into it strapped down and I'm hoping it will work. The biggest problem today trying it out (without Julia) is that at the lowest setting the seat is nearly too high for me to reach the pedals! I guess they figure munchkins wouldn't be taking other people around for bike rides! Oh well. If it works out there will be a picture here later this weekend. The bike belongs to my friends Danny and Sharon (brother and sister) who take their mother for rides on it. Sharon said her mother isn't doing well enough right now to use it so she said for me to keep it until I hear from her. If Julia likes it, we'll try to do it more but if she hates it I'll go ahead and take it back! LOL

By the time I got done with that I didn't have enough time for the next item on my Jump Start agenda, which was swimming laps at the college pool. I'd have only had about 20 mins before they closed. So Berry and I went for a LONG neighborhood walk instead, then I went for a shorter bike ride (on my regular bike, which I literally had to dust off in order to ride. LOL It had been YEARS since I rode it).

Then after dinner another taekwondo class. This was the first class I've taken with our new instructor, who is tough. We did 50 jumping jacks, 25 "boxer" situps, 25 crunches, 60 pushups, and lots and lots of kicks. So I did pretty well for day 3. Yesterday Day 2 ended up kind of wimpy. I hadn't slept well and I pooped out early. I did the morning items on my agenda (pilates, step, and stretching classes which were 30 mins each) but napped in the afternoon instead of exercising. I did redeem myself with an after-dinner walk though.

Since I didn't make it to the pool today I might change tomorrow's plan. My original plan had been to play mini-golf tomorrow at this place that is a nice walk in the woods. It takes 90 minutes to play the mini golf course. I might save that for next week and go swimming tomorrow. I have to look at my schedule again and decide...decisions, decisions. Oh also this afternoon I watched last night's "Biggest Loser" as my inspirational thing of the day.

On to day four!

Whew! Today was a good start to my "Jump Start" Fitness program. I got up and got Julia ready for school, ate breakfast, then took the dog for a walk in the neighborhood. I'd intended to go walk on the canal but it was a moderately messy day and I didn't want him to get all muddy. So we walked in the neighborhood for about 30 minutes. Then I did the following:
9:45-10:45 Yoga for Flexibility Class
10:45-11:30 Snack/Chat
11:30-12:15 Shooting Hoops
12:15-12:45 Circuit training/weight lifting (this class was intense!)
1:15-1:45 Swim laps

Then I did a quick grocery run, came home and ate lunch and then watched "I Can Make You Thin" as my inspirational thing for today. I beat the school bus home by about 60 seconds!

I may go to taekwondo tonight, but our friend Lisa is coming to dinner (last minute plans) so it depends how rude it will be to leave.

I am tired but also feel good. I did eat more today. The snack was a peanut butter sandwich and grapes, and lunch was ham and cheese, and also a taco leftover from last night. I wanted to be sure to get enough protein to fuel myself! Dinner is pork chops, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.

Anyway I am happy with day one. This is also the day I officially weigh, and I lost two pounds this week, for a total of 8 so far according to my home scale, from my highest a few weeks ago. Let me tell you, yoga was NOT intended for obese people. My joints are plenty flexible but my stomach gets in the way! And in the circuit training class we did a lot of jumping on those mini trampolines. Which was great except for my stomach bouncing up and down too much. Blah. Can't wait to be rid of some of that!

I need to check my schedule for tomorrow but I think it will be fine to continue my jump start program. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow (It never rained hard today but misted all day) so I might have to change a walking plan.

More tomorrow!

This is Berry, resting in the pachysandra after our first walk of Spring yesterday. We went around the short block,with me holding Berry's leash with one hand and pulling Julia's wagon with the other hand. That thing is heavy!! I chose the "short" block to be sure I didn't get stuck halfway around. LOL Next time maybe we'll try the longer block. Julia did fine and Berry was VERY excited. We sat on the front porch for a while afterwards (which is where I took this picture). I guess the pachysandra felt cool. Here's another picture which I think is even cuter.



Since I posted a picture of the dog, I'd better post a picture of the kid, right? Well, at taekwondo class yesterday morning I asked my instructor if she thought there might be anyone with a used uniform in Julia's size that they'd be willing to give me. I thought she might enjoy wearing one sometimes since she goes to so many classes with me. The instructor ran in the back room and came out with one. She said I might think about removing the collar since that indicates instructor trainee/leadership program! I will see if the uniform looks a different color underneath and if so I won't remove it, or maybe I'll just find a different color to sew over top of it. Bob wants me to make her a pink belt. LOL Anyway here she is, totally adorable.




In other news, I'm planning a Jump Start fitness program next week. I've mapped out my whole free time while Julia is in school, and I'm going to go for a walk on the canal, do some interesting classes at the gym, maybe a bike ride, and if I get my nerve up borrow my neighbor's rollerblades. Oh and swim. So I'm going to be doing SOMETHING for several hours each day. I'd like to schedule some time for researching or reading inspirational stuff too. Gotta find some I guess. What I'm doing is trying to mimic a sort of residential weight loss program that I looked into. I thought it would be interesting to mix up activities and do some interesting things. One thing I still need to research is if there is anywhere nearby I could go canoeing or something like that. Unfortunately unlike the residential program I'm going to have to factor in driving time! LOL I'm seriously considering actually attending the residential program this year but I don't see how I could go for two weeks which is what they recommend. One week might not really be enough.

Anyway I'm sure I'll be posting about that next week!

Isn't this cute? Julia and I made them this afternoon to give to a couple of our favorite nurses. You dump everything into a bowl, cut the bunnies in pieces with kitchen shears, add some butter and vanilla and bake it and you have s'more bars. Someone at the gym had one in the locker room yesterday and I googled and found the recipe. Here it is:

http://tinyurl.com/2tyujm

We only had three of the mason jars large enough. I might go see if I can find some more tomorrow. The store we went to today only had small ones but I had three leftover from another project!

While I'm on the peep issue, here's another pic of the cutest cupcakes someone made for church last week:



We kind of have a "thing" about peeps in our house. Julia doesn't take ANY food by mouth, but every year she gets to suck on a peep. So they have special meaning to us. LOL By the way, when you are looking for images of Peeps to print onto instructions for the peep s'mores, I recommend highly AGAINST doing a google search for "peeps." Definitely add the "marshmallow" in there or you get peep show stuff! Ack! Ask me how I know?

Oh, and a big victory. I bought two giant bags of Easter M&M's to make these, and did not eat a single one. I'm not sure I've ever had that control before. I did drop one on the floor and never found it but I think the dog found it later. I walked into the kitchen and he skulked out looking guilty. Hm...

Yeah! I finished it! Well, I still have to QUILT it but it is done up to that point. Yeah! I had to get the three tallest women in the quilt group (which isn't saying much by the way) to hold it up for the picture. You can see one of them to the right but the other two are hidden standing in the back with their arms as high overhead as possible. They assured me they were smiling for the picture though. This thing is a monster, about 100 inches square. I hope to have it DONE DONE by our quilt show May 17th.

I had to take a picture of this:



Aren't they cute? One of the quilters was making them to give to her nieces and nephews as gifts. Very sweet. Reminds me when I was a kid that my grandma had made a bunch of chickens that went inside those plastic eggs. Wonder whatever happened to those? Anyway this just goes to show that you don't only see quilts at a quilt guild meeting!

I also got two more quilts to quilt for people at the meeting. Ack. I'm going to be behind again before I know it! One of them is here:



One of the ladies in the quilt group lost a granddaughter to a terrible riding lawn mower accident about this time last year. She was a senior in high school I think. They are having a fundraiser for a scholarship fund for her high school and the quilt group put this quilt together for the fundraiser. I'm going to quilt it. Pretty much just for my materials (deeply discounted). They were hoping to raffle it off but due to NJ laws they can't. They will have a silent auction instead.

Anyway I have my work cut out for me in the near future. Speaking of which I am thinking of applying for a part-time temporary job where my friend Sue works. It would be about 20 hours a week for a month of their busy season in April and May, and it is literally a mile from my house, maybe less. I would like the extra money to pay for taekwondo. Bob says we have to be careful though for tax reasons this year because he got a big bonus this month. So I have to do some research first! Anyway the job is for a company that sends care packages to college students for exams. I would be doing customer service work. I am going to talk to Sue more about it tomorrow. The nice thing about this company is that they have three crunch times a year that they need extra help so I could do it occasionally for extra money. Sue worked for them in that way for a couple years before she went to work for them fulltime. The downside is that the customer service job would probably be 10-2 every week day and that would pretty much be all my "free" time while Julia is in school. Not sure I want to give that up.

Anyhoo I need to get to bed. I'll sign off with a picture of what Julia made me at school today. Isn't it beautiful? Unfortunately we went straight from school to a doctor's appointment, to church, then to quilt meeting so I didn't unpack this until 9:30 PM so I think I'll forego eating it. But I will admire it for a couple days!

So far, so good. I've been doing really well with my eating for the past three days. Last night my husband laughed at me because while eating dinner I said "This broccoli is so good!" He gave me this weird look, and I kind of shrugged my shoulders and sheepishly said "Well I'd been looking forward to this broccoli all day." Okay so maybe something changed in my head! I made baked chicken with garlic and spices (the pieces of chicken were HUGE! Even my husband only ate a half a piece). I had a tiny little (1/4 cup) serving of homemade mac and cheese, and a giant serving of broccoli, and I weighed out 4 oz of the chicken. I also had motivation not to eat too much because I was going to taekwondo afterward and I don't like exercising with a really full stomach. I put aside 4 more ounces of chicken for lunch today and froze some more for later. Told you the pieces were big! My doctor believes that protein is not properly processed by the body without having some carbs too, so that's why I had the mac and cheese. He has this whole "balance" plan of eating certain amounts of carbs, fats, and proteins (a balanced snack for instance would be a handful of grapes AND a handful of almonds). It kind of makes sense, but according to him I should be eating about 1800 calories a day on his plan. I just don't think I can do that without gaining weight. So what I'm doing is following the weight watcher points system and keeping within the points amount for my weight, but also trying to balance the protein, carbs, and fat within each meal according to his plan. He might not be happy about that. I'll find out in a month or so.

I went to taekwondo class last night and I was worried because it felt like my uniform was TIGHTER around my hips/stomach. I don't know why. But I weighed this morning and I've lost weight since Monday so that should be fine. Eventually it will come off. I tend to lose weight first in my waist, which always bothers me because it only emphasizes my bigger hips. I am only planning to "officially" weigh once a week but I was worried about the uniform thing so I decided to weigh today.

My bracelet seems to be helping to remind me about eating right. Tonight will be a challenge. We have a dinner at church, and this particular dinner is always really really good. I can eat everything they serve (lamb, potatoes, etc), but I will just have to be careful about portions. I also had to make an angel food cake to take for the strawberry shortcake dessert. I decided to make it first thing this morning since in the afternoon I would be more likely to want some of it. I didn't even lick the spoon! That might be a first ever!!! Now I have to go get ready to go to the gym. I'm planning my visit for when the basketball games start so I can watch and ellipt at the same time.

I am recommitting today to eating right. Do I sound like a broken record?? I have done well lately with exercise but have not been paying that much attention to eating. I am reading a book by a "diet doctor" that I picked up at the library (in general I think these things are crap, but it was 50 cents on the sale rack and it looked interesting), and it talks a lot about the psychology and thought processes. I think this is the thing I have never tried to change before. Specifically, not thinking of foods as "good" and "bad" and not thinking of foods I like as treats that I can reward myself with for good behavior. It talks about how not to feel deprived (I'm not depriving myself of a cookie. I have had enough cookies to last a lifetime). It is a lot about the psychological battle, which I think for me is the real problem. So anyway, I'm doing a couple of things. I'm going to concentrate on eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, and I'm going to double up on veggies. I cook for my husband who does not have a weight problem at all, and I think I'm going to start serving HIM the pasta and things he likes but double up on vegetables for myself instead. One thing the doctor recommends for retraining is making tapes of inspiring thoughts. At first I thought that was kind of silly but the more I think about it, maybe it could help. And in the spirit of "what I'm doing now isn't working" then maybe it is good to try something I've never tried before. So I'm going to work on that this week.

I thought of something else that I am going to use as a psychological tool. I was thinking along the lines of the "Live Strong" bracelets that people wear to show their support for cancer research, or their dedication to any number of causes. I decided I wanted to wear something that is a visible reminder to myself of trying to eat healthier. So I made a knotted friendship bracelet in red, white, and black.

The red is to remind me when I see my hand reaching out for food, to STOP and think about whether it is a healthy choice or whether the 5 minutes of pleasure is worth the weight it will add. The black is to remind me how dark I feel after eating stuff that I know is not healthy for me or that triggers uncontrolled eating. Also the black is for my black belt in taekwondo, which will remind me how much better I will be at martial arts when I have lost some weight. And finally the white is for the light at the end of the tunnel. The white makes a kind of zigzag down the bracelet and that is to remind me that the path is not straight and there will be bumps, but that the goal of being smaller and healthier is worth the effort.

I don't know if this will work or not, but I'm hoping that seeing this all the time will remind me to make better choices.

Unbeknownst to me, apparently today was National Quilting Day. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time...but I did end up sewing for a good part of the day anyway. Look at this!



I'm getting so close to done that I can taste it! All that's left is one plain red border. As you can see, it is officially as big as the biggest floor space in my house. LOL It is queen sized and it is also square which is a bit weird for a bed I think, but it should work on mine I hope. I have worked hard on this all weekend and it is exciting to be almost done with this "ufo" that was a couple years old. Then I have to figure out how to quilt it. I'll probably stick with a star theme of some sort. So I'm happy with my National Quilting Day progress!

I spent most of today watching basketball (partly while sewing and partly just concentrating on basketball). My team won and Bob's team lost. Which is disappointing because we hoped they would meet in the final tomorrow. My team still gets to play so we'll watch it but it would have been more fun if it was mine versus his. Sigh.

Julia is mostly over her cold. She's still needing oxygen and is still coughing but that is pretty normal for her after a cold. I woke up with an icky throat this morning so I decided not to go to the gym, and I slept extra late. It feels pretty good now but will probably be icky again by morning. I have to play trumpet in church tomorrow so I hope it isn't too bad. Bob and I had a big discussion tonight about how to deal with Julia tomorrow in church. He's playing handbells while I play trumpet, so we will probably have to ask one of the nurses in the congregation to keep an eye on Julia back in the back of the church. There is one in particular who usually helps us out so hopefully she'll be there tomorrow. It is really stressful trying to make a joyful noise while hearing your child gagging and choking!

Other than that the only other news is that Bob fixed the oven today, which was very impressive. The "ignitor" in our oven goes out about once every 9 months or so and I vowed next time I wasn't paying someone to come replace it. So we ordered the part and Bob replaced it today. We think the last replacement part was a very cheap one. The wires were corroded and it hadn't been there more than 9 months we don't think. HOpefully this will last a while but if it doesn't we know Bob can fix it now! This part is apparently very fragile. The last time the repairman came when he got the part from his truck the first one was already broken, and he broke the second one trying to get it in place! Took three parts! I guess having a chemist's hands is an advantage. I told Bob to pretend it was a dangerous chemical he was working with that would explode if jostled. He didn't think that was very helpful, for some reason. LOL

Okay off to bed so I can be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.

This afternoon I went and got my picture taken for the official photo session at the taekwondo place. I had a head shot, a ready stance, two of me with kamas, and one side kick. They turned out pretty good. I wish I'd done one with the long staff too. Oh well there's always next year. I nixed one of the kama ones because the way I was standing and my legs being so short made me look really weirdly out of proportion. OH I also had a nice shot of me sticking my tongue out at Susan V., who was sitting behind the photographer making me laugh. Needless to say, that one won't be on the poster! It was cute though. I had a really hard time deciding what to buy in the end. I ended up deciding to get a package where my four favorite shots are all sort of a collage together, with a red background with lightning bolts. I'll get an 8X10 which I think I'll frame and put with my black belt certificate on the wall in my bedroom (how's that for an ego trip?) and 3 4X6 and 8 wallets. I will send a 4X6 to Eraflewr and my parents, and give Windsornot a wallet. Not sure what I'll do with the others. I guess I'll give Bob one but I can't exactly see him displaying it at work... maybe he'll surprise me though. I still wonder if I made the wrong choice and should have just picked the best kama shot and gotten only it. Would have been much cheaper that way...I don't know. I needed someone else there helping me choose. lol I guess it isn't too late to change it but I'd need to decide in the morning...

I watched Karen and her two boys getting theirs done and it was fun to watch too. He had some interesting techniques to get the kicks looking nice. I tried to get him to sell me the "stretch" package...where he stretches the picture up so I look 6 inches taller and 6 inches thinner. But he wouldn't do it. LOL I will practice and next year have some really good shots. My goal is to have a red/black collar (and possibly a state champ uniform) by next year's picture. That would be cool.

After my pictures I stuck around to help teach the white/orange/yellow Tiny Tigers which I think were all 5 to 8 years old. I have a LOT to learn about teaching. It is really difficult to keep 10 or so little kids on task! Plus just telling them what to do doesn't work. You have to show them, and you have to show them "backwards" so you are SAYING "with your right foot back" but *I* actually have my left foot back. Very confusing. We did a bunch of stretches and those practice kicks where you are lying on your side and I had to walk around and make sure their feet were in the right position (and keep getting one girl to quit laying on her BACK being lazy). For the most part they did well with that. We worked on the first half of Songahm 2, which I had forgotten but remembered quickly. We did it over and over and I had to tell a few of them to switch feet, punch with the other hand, etc. I can see why it is helpful to have a teacher AND an assistant. Then we did sparring. I helped several of them into their gear. There was one mom there with FOUR girls, and she thanked me profusely for tying chest protectors, putting on shin guards, etc. I guess most of the time she is trying to do all four of them herself. They were all very cute and they told me that there are four of them because their parents tried four times for a boy! (You learn a lot from kids).

The sparring was interesting. There was one of the littlest girls who was sparring for the very first time. She had just gotten her gear bag today with her stuff in it. We had talked about that before class and she showed me all her stuff. She was really nervous about sparring. I helped her for the first two rounds, standing with her and demonstrating what she should do. She would NOT kick the other person though, no matter how much I tried to get her to do it. At least she never cried. It was my goal to keep her from crying! I was really impressed how well the other two little kids did with her, being VERY gentle (SW was reminding them often) and going really easy on her. It was cute. HOpefully she didn't get scared about it. For the last round I sparred the biggest kid who was by far way bigger than any of the others. I wasn't wearing any gear but I told him he could kick me anyway and if he got me, that was my fault because I should have blocked. It went fine. Assisting in REMOVING gear is WAY easier than assisting in putting it on, by the way.

Then we did board breaks. I had never done this by myself before and did okay. I think I should have had them practice more before actually breaking, but I held the boards in the proper directions (crack going up and down, or side to side) for each break, and all the kids were successful. They are so funny about the herd mentality. Nearly always whatever break the first kid chooses, the rest do that same one even though I gave them options. SW had to come help me with one kid but the rest of my group I did alone. I think I learned some ways to make that go better next time too, especially having them show me exactly what they are going to do before they do it...I'll be better next time. But that's the point of assisting in order to become an instructor!

After board breaks we did weapons. I took about 8 kids with SJB's while Mr. K (the teenage main instructor for that class) took the two biggest ones with long staffs. SW helped me because they were SOOOO beginner and I wasn't sure exactly where to start. I probably should have done the long staffs since that's what we worked on in instructor class, but oh well. So she showed some basic techniques and then I helped them individually work on things. She even walked away at the end and left me alone with them. It went okay. Again, I learned a lot!

Then I stopped at the store and got stuff to make burgers for dinner while we watched the Duke basketball game. UNC and Duke both won today which means Bob and Julia and I will spend most of tomorrow watching basketball too! Julia has been sick all week and missed 4 days of school. I'm glad we kept her home again today because she coughed a lot and needed to rest here and relax. I need her well by Sunday because I'm playing trumpet in church and she needs to be well enough for one of the other moms to be able to keep an eye on her while I play!

I also worked on a quilt today. This is one of my UFO's (unfinished objects) that I am determined to finish this year. It is going to be absolutely stunning, in red, white, and blue. Here is a picture of just PART of it. It will end up humongous, with the sort of zigzag border you can see on the bottom going all the way around and then another red border also. I finally caught up on other people's quilts so I can work on my own for the next week or so!