I am not much of a sports fan usually.  In fact, I think the only sport I have ever followed was hockey.  My best friend Christine and I were huge NY Rangers fans when we were in high school.  Teen girls watch sports a little differently than guys do, I think.  We pick our favorite guys and learn everything about them and talk about how cute they are, etc.  Mike Gartner was “my guy” and Mike Richter was “her guy.”  For anyone who followed the Rangers, you will know that Mike Gartner was traded a month or two before the Rangers finally broke their 54 year long curse & won the Stanley Cup.  That was a quite a sad occasion.  (Not the winning of the Stanley Cup…the trading of Mike Gartner.)  After college, I kind of stopped watching and now I don’t even know anyone who plays anymore.  I’m not in contact with Christine and it kind of takes the fun out of it when I don’t have anyone with watch with.  The rest of my family aren’t sports watchers either – except mom.  She is a Yankees fan.  Unfortunately, I just can’t sit down and watch baseball with her…it’s a little too slow for me.

I was actually kind of surprised to find out that today was the last day of the Olympics.  Where the heck have I been?  I think I only watched a day or two.  I’m kind of bummed that I missed most of the events – especially the ice skating.  I have to make a point of paying closer attention to the summer Olympic schedule in a few years.

Well, I better get back to watching and rooting for the “other guys.”  LOL  I hope the Americans won’t hold it against me.  I’m just a sucker for a good sob story and that video clip yesterday had me convinced that the Canadians just HAVE TO win today.

So, things have been good here.  I’ve been going to physical therapy for the past few weeks to take care of the neck and back pain I have. Wish I knew how it all started – I still want to blame the mono I had last year.  I feel like I never really recovered completely from the mono.  In any case, the PT is helping a little…I’m definitely not getting any of those tension headaches anymore.  Thank goodness.

Sadly, I have bit of a new problem now.  I have been trying to get back into some kind of exercise routine again – good for stress, good for the heart, etc.  Well, I think I went a little too crazy with the stomach crunches the other night and I ended up pulling some kind of muscle in my abdomen.  At least, I think that is what happened.  All I know is that I started feeling some kind of weird pain slightly below my ribs and toward the center of my stomach area.  Over the next few days, the weird pain began to feel more like a ripping, burning, OUCH kind of pain.  Sometimes when I bend over, it actually feels like something it hitting up against my lower rib.  I think it’s strained or swollen or both.

Either that or it’s that tumor I’ve always been afraid of getting.  "It’s not a tumor," said Arnold.

In any case, I now have to put ice packs on my stomach for the abdominal muscle swelling and heating pads on my back for the back pain I have.  LOL  Seriously.  I am a little broken.  I’m heading to the doctor on Monday just to make sure it’s only a sprain.  This sure puts a damper on my exercise plans.   Oh well!  The exercise machines will be waiting for me until I get better.  In the meantime, I’ll just stick with some yoga and my strength training.  I always liked arm and shoulder exercises better than those darned crunches anyway.  It stinks a little when we start getting old. (Psst…this is where someone posts a comment to assure me that 30-ish isn’t old.)    I sure don’t feel old most of the time, but when my body starts falling apart after a few stomach crunches, I definitely start to wonder!