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• spending time with friends (Church Dinner on Friday)
• playing the piano (After dinner on Friday, 2 hours)
• going for a long run (Sunday, 9 miles)
• reflecting on past successes (Sunday, email to our church consultant)
• baking (a pie, Monday)
• trying to catch up on work (Tuesday)
• asking for advice on tough decisions (Tuesday)
• cleaning (Brian’s been doing most of this at home, but I did clean my office last week when my new bookcase arrived, and we’re working on cleaning all the leftovers out of the refrigerator)
• getting away (taking a hike this weekend)

I’m glad I have this mental list. I’ve been using it. I think it’s working.

As a side note, playing the piano was really intriguing. I haven’t played that long in years. I mostly played pieces I learned in elementary school. During one section, I found myself wanting to speed up without knowing what came next. Sure enough, a bunch of chromatic scales were in the next movement. I used to race to see how fast I could play them. The muscle memory was still there. For sections that were repeated, I would play a few wrong notes the first time but play it almost perfectly the second time. Really intriguing. I threw in Bohemian Rhapsody (Mercury) among Sonatinas by Mozart, Clementi and Kuhlau. Yes Brian noticed.
Thank you Sheldons for the piano!

Sometimes weight plateaus and sometimes fitness plateaus. While my weight didn’t budge this week after making progress the past two, my running speed increased by leaps and bounds. On Sunday Su and I ran 10k in 57:20 on a hot and humid afternoon. My previous best time this year was 1:00:00 on June 29. On Tuesday the weather was cool and dry and I ran the same 10k in 53:40. That’s 10 full minutes slower than my best 10k time (in 2000), but still 10 minutes faster than I could run a 10k in May. With a draw on the weight loss and a victory on the fitness front I think I’ll declare this week a minor victory.

Starting weight: 204
Ending weight: 204

Saturday: Martina
Sunday: Run 10k
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Run 10k
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Martina
Friday: ???

I’ve been pretty grumpy this week. My vocabulary had sunk to two words: “ok.” and “grrrrr” by 7pm last evening, so Brian suggested that I come home for a tasty dinner and try to press the “reset” button on my day. I managed to get even crankier on the way home, so I tried to burn off some of my angst by running. Fast. I ran my first sub-8min miles since the Danskin Triathlon.

Brian did strong work on dinner, making a delicious lime/coconut grilled salmon and curried cous cous. We tried to have a nice conversation. It almost worked, but then I resorted to excessive venting again.

Slinky decided to contribute – he caught and ate most of a mouse last night, leaving the tail and hind legs for us as a token of his love. Good kitty!
I have to say my the males at home are really trying to improve my mood. I hope it takes. I’m very grateful for their patience.

Did you get the memo that last week was National Fall Off the Floor Week? If you had been reading Martina Navratilova’s book you would have known this. Su and I have been progressing through the workouts and while they have occasionally taxed us, they haven’t been all too difficult either in strength or agility required. We finally hit Advanced weeks 3 and 4 in the book which consists of doing every exercise on one leg, on an unstable surface, or balanced on a foam roller. This has lead to many comical situations where Su and I try not to fall off the floor into each other as we balance on one leg while doing squats while simultaneously standing on something that could best be described as a deflated balloon.

Starting weight: 206
Ending weight: 204

Saturday: Martina
Sunday: Run 3.5 miles
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Martina
Wednesday: Martina
Thursday: Run 4 miles
Friday: Rest

I woke up this morning with a very swollen left eyelid. It’s not a very pleasant thing to discover after leaping from bed when one’s alarm hasn’t gone off and one is now late to a meeting. Fortunately, it was easy to beg off the early meeting and work from home, so my puffy eye took center stage today.

As I’m sure most of us do these days, I went straight to Web MD. I started ruling out some of the common causes. I also put ice on my eye – time will tell if that helped reduce the swelling or ended up making the area a bit more red than it might have otherwise, thus concerning my doctor. At any rate, I figured some ice and Sudafed wouldn’t hurt, so I tried that and went back to bed for a little while. Called the doctor. Wonder of wonders, they called me back right at 9:05 (the office opened at 9). They were nice. They asked if I wanted to see the doctor today (I said yes). They got me in at 1:45pm. By then, I could easily open my eye and even put in my contacts to drive myself over. It was redder and I felt more pressure behind my eye, but at least the swelling was down substantially.

The doctor asked lots of questions. She tapped on her laptop. She looked and poked. She frowned. She gave me antibiotics, a stern warning to call her and go to the ER if it got worse over the weekend, and sent me to the optometrist. They were also very accommodating and very nice. I saw a new doctor and then she brought in my regular doctor to look too. No weird bumps. No unusual redness. They said it’s better not to wear my contacts, but they didn’t think it was an actual eye problem. They gave me some eye drops to use if my eye felt dry or itchy.

The good news is that I don’t have shingles. Brian and I are convinced, with my history, that it’s sinus infection that decided to settle around my eye. It’s a little weird that 1/4 of my face is red and puffy but the rest is pretty much normal. This is the exact circumstance under which I’d like to have good glasses. [Why don’t I? Wearing gas permeable contacts actually changes the shape of my eye. It takes a few days for it to go back to its natural shape. Having an eye exam when I’ve been wearing my contacts leads to a less accurate prescription for glasses. Since I’ve never been willing to take the eye sight hit for that long, I haven’t gotten a new glasses prescription in >10 years. It’s hard to go from 20/15 vision to 20/100ish for more than a few hours.]

Steve suggested that I should get an eye patch and come to work anyway. He even offered to talk like a pirate in support. Brian found this to be a very funny conversation full of yaarh and ahoy while I was working from home. At any rate, I am planning to be back at work on Monday, and hopefully no black eye patches will be required.

Our pantry area was sadly lacking in shelves so last week I decided to add 4 12″x42″ shelves to it. We still need to contact paper them, but there is so much more space. Before, during, after photo below.

Starting weight: 207
Ending weight: 206

Saturday: Slack
Sunday: Slack
Monday: Martina
Tuesday: Bike
Wednesday: Martina
Thursday: Slack
Friday: Slack

I had one small serving of green beans today. Sorry, I didn’t take a picture before I ate them, so you’ll have to imagine them being small and tender and tasty. I caught the 3 traditional beans before they got too big, and the new variety is turning out very well – long and only 1/4 thick as advertised. The first picking was literally a handful, but a nice addition to my lunch.
A few of the cherry tomatoes are starting to turn red. The other tomatoes are still green. I had to tie up the tomato plant by the garage – it grew out of its cage and across the walkway.  I am hoping all the healthy foliage lead to lots of tasty tomatoes eventually.  The plants are still flowering.
It looks like the salad greens are on a weekly picking cycle. Works for me.

I never really understood the joy of pie crusts until I met Susan. Growing up I rarely ate the crust of a pie, although maybe my tastes were just different than now. In any case, I love Su’s pie crusts.

This year has been a bumper crop for New England blueberries so last Saturday I asked Susan to make me a pie. She made a blueberry pie, and just for the heck of it made a quiche for breakfast. Mmmmmm…

Starting weight: 208
Ending weight: 207

Saturday: Bike 20 miles
Sunday: Slack
Monday: Slack
Tuesday: Slack
Wednesday: Martina
Thursday: Run 5 miles
Friday: Rest

Not a great week, although I picked it up at the end. Susan was out of town and I tend to not pay as much attention to what I eat or how much I exercise when she’s not around. Still, I lost weight for the week, had a good Thursday run, and accomplished a lot around the house on Friday (post later). It was 90+ degrees on Thursday when I ran so I knew I’d lose a lot of water weight. For fun I weighed myself before and after the run. I lost 5.5 pounds in 45 minutes which is basically a pint of fluid every 9 minutes. Needless to say I was thirsty when I arrived home.