Sheltering From The Summer Storm

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Coco

I’m writing this post from the basement of my Mom’s house, because she has power and we don’t. The record-breaking heat we had on friday (106F and it was not a dry heat!) led to severe storms that caused major damage. According to the outage information on our electric company’s website, nearly 1/2 the people in my city are without power (28,000 customers). My mom is lucky enough to live in a pocket of the city that was spared, and generous enough to invite us over.

While a summer power outage is not as much fun as a winter snow day, it feels the same in some ways. Neighbors are out talking to each other, sharing information, commiserating, and offering help with removing large downed branches. What was going to be a normal Saturday filled with household chores turned into a day of “adventures”: finding the closest Starbucks with power for our morning coffee, going to the office long enough to recharge phones and laptops, and using the facilities at the gym to dry my hair. As the day wore on with no electricity in sight, my husband’s passing mention that “Moonrise Kingdom” looked like a good move turned into an impromptu date.

We weren’t the only ones hoping to stay cool at the movies!

After the movie, we had to face the reality of another night without power. When we got home we checked the temperature inside the refrigerator.

Ugh!

We poured out the milk, half-and-half, and Eggbeaters, and packed up a cooler with the unopened sandwich meat and cheeses.

I guess I will be filling up the trash can tomorrow. 🙁

We grabbed a few overnight essentials, and headed to my Mom’s house. We showed Tiger Lilly around her house, and let her play in my Mom’s sprinkler. We cooked our hamburgers for dinner, and added tomatoes and green peppers from my Mom’s garden to our dinner salad. When my son headed out to the movies, we took Tiger Lilly for a walk–it was nice to have a new neighborhood to explore, and especially nice to be able to take a long walk without having to trudge up any hills!

I’m sure I’ll be antsy tomorrow–it will get harder and harder to avoid thinking about all of the things I’m not getting done–but for now I’m enjoying the forced down time and the unavoidable family time.

What is the longest you’ve been out of power?

Did you see any movies this weekend?

Posted in Life | Tagged | 8 Comments

Book Review: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened By Jenny Lawson

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Coco

I guess if Carla won’t start a book club, I will have to start her book club for her, because this is another book that I bought and enjoyed after she mentioned enjoying it herself.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

The author, Jenny Lawson, is a blogger (or should I say, she is The Bloggess?), but this book is not about blogging or life as a blogger. As described on Amazon:

Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.

Despite this description, it is important to note the subtitle:

(A Mostly True Memoir)

Or does that matter? I’ve seen several book reviews wondering just how much of the book is “true” and if the subtitle/disclaimer should shield the book from those types of questions, but I honestly don’t care. (I also enjoyed James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and did not get wrapped up in the “controversy” about the veracity of that “memoir” either.)

I am adding Let’s Pretend This Never Happened to my short list of books that truly make me laugh out loud–so far the only other book on that list is Tina Fey’s Bossypants. Some of the stories in this book are more “inappropriate” than Bossypants, so I’m a bit hesitant to recommend it to all of my friends, but I’m pretty sure that they all would enjoy it, even if we wouldn’t laugh over the vagina chapter until we’d finished off at least one bottle of wine together.

What are you reading now?

Do you mind if a “memoir” is not 100% true?

Posted in Book Reviews, Life | Tagged , | 9 Comments

My ITB Is A B*TCH

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Coco

I am about halfway through my scheduled physical therapy for my ITB/piriformis/SI issue and my condition is improving.  With each visit, my physical therapist finds less and less to work on–although I don’t mind when she finds a tight spot in my back because then I get a mini-massage. 🙂

I have been working hard on my recovery. I stopped running for two weeks. (My beach run was after I took two full weeks off, although it was before I was officially cleared to run again.) I’ve done all of my physical therapy exercises every day – even though that means 45 minutes of core work. I’ve been focusing on tightening my core throughout my daily activities, sitting up straight, and standing evenly on both feet instead of putting all of my weight on one leg like I tend to do.

On Tuesday, my physical therapist thought I was ready to start running again. She watched me run on the treadmill for a few minutes, and confirmed that my gait and motion looked good. We agreed on a 4 mile test run, which I did today. All in all, it was a great run. The weather was amazing for late June (in the upper 60s with low humidity and a nice breeze!) and Tiger Lilly was a good companion–until she nearly dragged me into a water sprinkler that was too tempting for her to resist at the top of a hill!

I started off slowly (at a 10+ min/mile pace) and didn’t notice any twinges until about one mile into my route. It was then that my ITB spoke up, with the same nagging that has been plaguing me for months now. 🙁 It never hurt and it may have gotten better as I continued, but it never completely went away. The good news is that the pain is gone now, but that’s how it was before I started physical therapy–my ITB would ache during a run, but not otherwise. Hopefully my physical therapist will let me keep running, and will have some suggestions for my ITB.

In the meantime, I will continue plugging away with my exercises. My current routine includes:

fitball glute bridges (3 sets of 10)
fitball roll-outs (3 sets of 15)
front planks on elbows ( 3 sets of 8)
prone heel/glute squeezes (3 sets of 8)
side planks with feet elevated (3 sets of 8)

I hold each rep for 10 seconds, so each set of 8 takes about 2 minutes, while each set of 10 takes about 2.5 minutes. Adding a bit of rest between sets and exercises, it all adds up to about 45 minutes. 

Tonight I was jealous of Linsey when I saw this tweet:

https://twitter.com/wordpressdotcom/status/218131128316461057

Hopefully I will be saying that soon.

Have you ever had problems with your ITB?

What worked for you?

Posted in Fitness | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Tiger Lilly Strikes A Pose

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Coco

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Posted in Life | Tagged , | 4 Comments

My Formula For Lunchtime Success

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Coco

I’ve always packed my lunch for work, but I’m not sure why. Maybe because I always brought my lunch to school, maybe because I grew up watching my Dad pack a lunch for work (a sandwich, a yogurt and an apple, if I had to guess), or maybe because I just can’t stomach paying $10 for a sandwich day in and day out. When I was dieting, bringing my own lunch was the only way I could be sure to follow my plan. Now I see bringing my lunch as the best way to guarantee that I will have a yummy meal that will get me through the afternoon.

I don’t have much time to spend fixing my lunch, but I’ve developed a formula that makes it easy to put something together quickly.

  1. I start with a Chobani yogurt for a mid-morning snack. (Can you believe I didn’t like Greek yogurt at all until I discovered Chobani?)
  2. The large plastic container has a simple salad (lettuce, tomato, a spritz of dressing)
  3. The small plastic container has leftovers from dinner (for this picture it was a stuffed pepper)
  4. The orange is to satisfy my sweet tooth after lunch.
  5. The apple is to tide me over through my drive home from work.

I also have a stash of snacks at work–like my favorite Cliff Chocolate Brownie Z-Bars–if I need an afternoon snack.

Since my family doesn’t like to eat leftovers, I usually have plenty of options for my lunch, but if we’ve had a busy week and I haven’t cooked dinner at home (or if we’ve had a hungry week and there aren’t any leftovers) I always have Lean Cuisine “spa cuisine” entrees or Amy’s meals in the freezer.

I enjoy my lunches so much that I even bring them to lunch meetings at the office. I’d rather eat something I know I will like than risk having to eat gloppy pasta or greasy stir fry. (Although if they serve my favorite type of brownie, I’m not too ashamed to take one of those!)

What do you eat for lunch?

Posted in Food, Work | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments