The only downfall of running on a Sunday was that the ONLY thing on TV was sports. Oh, and Fox News. Thank goodness for WGN, though. I watched Tuck Everlasting while running today. I’ve never seen it, nor have I read the book. How did my pre-adolescent self miss that book? I read all the time when I was younger, and probably would have loved that one. Oh well. Add it to the reading list. Something to recommend to my middle schoolers. *EDIT: Just finished the movie. Why can no one write a book with a happy ending? WTF? Kids can’t handle this kind of emotional turmoil. Bridge to Terabithia? I cried EVERY time I read that book. BAH! 

Anywho… It was an expensive weekend in our house. My car went in for an oil change and new brakes, and then Paul bought a new car. Yeah. That was unexpected. We’d talked for a while about trading his car in, but it happened rather suddenly yesterday. He got an incredibly good deal on the new car (as well as an insane amount of money for his old car), and couldn’t quite turn it down. I don’t blame him. I’m just happy because the new car has butt warmers. Heck yes.

Off to clean up and do domestic kinds of things that I’ve been putting off all weekend. Hooray for institute day tomorrow–off to learn about stuttering interventions. I’m a little too excited about it.

Oh. Wait.

I have one particular student, A, who likes to call me by my maiden name. I have known this student for 3 years, and of those 3 years, he has known me by my maiden name for only 2 months. But it’s fine. We have fun with it. In fact, earlier in the year, I joked that I knew he wasn’t feeling well because he used my married name when asking to go to the nurse.

Anyway, one other student, B, (who doesn’t speak much, and who doesn’t always have much functional language) has started emulating him, and calls me Miss [Maiden Name]. Love it. He doesn’t say much to me otherwise, so I love that he jokes with me in this way.

So, last Thursday, while working with B, I noticed that he was quieter than usual. I asked him a couple of times if he was tired. “No.” I asked if the activity was too hard and he was upset. “No.” Hmm. Okay. About 20 minutes after I left him, I saw him walking up to the office with a teacher, and he was out sick the next day. Aha! So I started thinking that I needed to make sure he knew he could ask me to go to the nurse, etc., when he needed to.

Today, I saw him and said, “Hey, B, did you go home sick last Thursday after speech?”

B: “Yes.”

Me: “B! You know you could have said something to me! You could have said, ‘Mrs. [Married Name], I don’t feel well. Can I go to the nurse?’”

B: (with mischievous grin) “No I couldn’t. You’re Miss [Maiden Name]!”

I love this kid so much it’s ridiculous.

Hope someone brought a smile to your face today, too.

I skipped the gym today in favor of a trip to Old Navy. Can’t beat a $10 dress. Also, my quads and hips hurt so much today that I spent most of my time at work hobbling through the hallways. How old am I?

I went for the first time after work today, and it didn’t get terribly busy until I was close to being done, so that gives me hope for not having to wait for treadmills. Speaking of the treadmills, they all have their own TVs! Yessss! High tech. The park district gym was so rinky-dink. They only had 5 treadmills to begin with, and they were all different. Haha.

Tonight, I backtracked a bit to the C25k program, just to ease back into things. I did a slow workout: 5 minute warm up, 3x (1/2 mile run, 1/4 mile walk), 5 minute cool down. It felt good to be moving again, and the workout wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated. So, maybe I didn’t lose as much as I thought during my month-and-a-half-long hiatus from physical activity. Unless you count lifting food to my mouth as physical activity. No? Rats.

Here’s a quick update:

-My Thanksgiving cranberries turned out just fine.

-I finished the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving within my goal time of 1 hour. It would’ve been quicker, but I was having serious stomach issues, which led to serious motivation issues. But, whatever.

-I haven’t been running since Thanksgiving. Oops.

So, anyway, I’ve been doing a bit of crocheting lately. I made a couple of blankets for Paul’s grandmothers for Christmas:

For Grandma A.

For Grandma L.

And I made the cuuuuutest owl hat for my new nephew:

Hoot!

(Pattern for the hat found here.)

Since I’ve been crocheting more, I’ve been looking for more patterns, which has led me to this conclusion: Just because you can crochet/knit something, doesn’t mean you should. Case in point: crocheted bikini. Really? Gross. Just gross. I had a talk with my aunt about a similar issue. It’s perfectly fine to crochet things for babies and little kids because they’re cute on their own merit. You could put them in a burlap bag and they’d still be adorable. But adults should not necessarily wear their own crocheted creations. Sometimes it’s just better to buy the sweater or the purse at the mall….

On that same note, I tried to make a cute little ruffle hat for my friend’s baby (well, she’s over 1…can I really call her a baby anymore?). I followed the instructions for the 12 month – 2T size and the hat is GIGANTIC. It fits my head. This hat for a baby = adorable. This hat for a 20-something woman = ehhhh. Maybe someone will buy it at a craft show….

Every year, I make cranberries for Thanksgiving dinner. For the past two years now, they’ve been too soupy. I very very carefully measured everything out today to make sure I wasn’t adding too much liquid. I even measured out the cranberries. But alas, I ended up with cranberry soup. I just hope it sets up tonight. Cross your fingers for me.

While I was waiting for the cranberries to cool, I decided to go for a quick 2.5 mile jog. WORST. RUN. EVER. I’m serious. I haven’t had a run go that badly since I first started running this summer. I ran for the first mile-ish, and then was having so much trouble breathing that I had to walk almost all of the remaining 1.5 miles. I couldn’t even run for 1/4-mile stretches. It was miserable. Just rotten. I’m going to potentially blame the sports bra I was wearing. It was new, and seemed to be extra compression-y, which maybe restricted my breathing too much. I’m hoping that’s it, anyway, because if these issues come up again tomorrow, I’m going to be out there running all through Thanksgiving dinner. Grumble grumble.

But since I don’t want to leave on such Negative Nancy Notes, here are two positives:

1. There is pumpkin ale in my (very near) future.

2. 101 Dalmations is on ABC Family right now (the live-action film, not the animated Disney classic), and Hugh Laurie plays one of the villains. Love it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

OMG. Positive note #3: The other villain is Mr. Weasley (Mark Williams)! HA!

I did a slow (SLOOOOOOW) 5k on Saturday–lots of walking thrown in there. My stomach was trying to break free from my body, and my sinuses were ready to go with it, so all in all, Saturday’s run was yet another miserable suckfest.

I woke up Sunday morning thinking I’d go out again, but could barely move. My shins and my hips hurt so much, so I took the day off.

This morning, I was feeling considerably better, so I bundled up and went out for a 5-mile run to gauge how long Thursday’s Turkey Trot would take. I felt a lot better while running–didn’t have any stomach issues and my sinuses are starting to clear up (after nearly 3 weeks of being clogged…ack), but I still needed to walk a bit. I just wanted to make sure that I would be capable of finishing in under an hour. I finished today’s 5 miles in 1:01:11, which is super slow, I know, but I’m clearly not running to win anything. Now I have a time to beat on Thursday morning. I should be able to do it, considering this morning’s run included a 5-minute warm up walk. I’m hoping to get in one more 5-miler either tomorrow or Wednesday. Let’s hope my shins and my foot stop hurting by then.

Oh yeah, my foot hurts a lot when I run (after about 3 miles). I know this is bad, and if it persists after Thursday, I will see a doctor, because it’s probably something awesome like a stress fracture. Or maybe I just tied my shoelaces too tight.