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!

I’m just glad I found a recipe that I can give her and not feel like I’m forcing her to eat it because she has no choice.

This week is going to be a busy one for me. I have Physical Therapy for my back on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow is Meg’s dentist appointment. Tuesday is a doctor’s appointment for me and Thursday is parent/teacher conferences.

The best news of all, though, is that I start my temp job next Tuesday for the Census Bureau. The money I make from that will be enough to pay for one of my college courses.
After that, I’ll be on the lookout for a job in one of the area medical/health offices. I don’t care if I’m filing paperwork – I just want to work in some kind of job environment that relates to the health profession in some way. I only need to do it for a few months in order to get the money to complete the final classes for my degree.
I’m getting there…

It has been a BUSY couple of months – the holidays always take up so much time, but things are slowing down a bit.  Or rather, I am learning to slow down a bit.  I have been doing so much reading about mindfulness and meditation and living in the moment…it sounds hokey, I guess, but it has made such a difference in my life.  I never realized how much time I actually spent thinking about the future or reviewing the past…and how much that actually affected my daily mood.

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.”

I have learned so much that I actually don’t know where to start, but one of my biggest changes is to no longer be bothered when someone “innocently inconveniences” me.  This includes the slow driver in front of me, the new checkout girl who is taking too long, the guy who connects me to the wrong number when I call for technical support, etc.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s not like I threw a hissy fit when that happened, but it would definitely cause some irritation and I was tired of feeling irritated.  Acceptance and peacefulness sure feels a lot better and definitely feels a lot more natural to me.  I used to be such a tolerant person,  but found that I have become impatient and ill-at-ease over the past few years.  It was definitely time for a different outlook. 

So, everything else is going fairly well in my life. Here’s the quick summary:

1 – I have my temporary job starting in 2 weeks.  The money from that should pay for at least one of my college courses.  I’ll only have 2 more classes to go after that.

2 – I started physical therapy last week for my neck and back.  They haven’t been feeling right since the mono last year.  I had some x-rays done and they showed a compression fracture in the middle of my back. I actually have no idea where that came from actually…the middle back only started hurting about a month ago.  I fell on my stairs about 4 years ago, so maybe it finally started hurting now?  I don’t know.  I also have muscle spasms in my neck and some osteoarthritis in my lower back and neck.  Ack!  I feel old.

3 – Meghan was taken to a natural homeopath last week.  She was still struggling with severe, but intermittent stomach pains.  It was determined that she is dealing with systemic yeast (Candida) overgrowth.  Normally the body can keep the yeast levels under control, but Meg was on birth control last year for a few months for her ovarian cyst and then she was put on 3 rounds of antibiotics for her sinus infection this fall.  That pretty much killed all the good bacteria in her system.  She also eats a lot of simple carbs and sugars, which is what the yeast feeds on.

So, how is it being treated?

Well, she’s been put on a yeast-free/sugar-free diet for the next 6 weeks.  Sugar-free also includes artificial sweeteners.  The only sweetener she can have is Stevia or xylitol.  I haven’t tried the xylitol, but Stevia can be a little bitter.  She’s having a rough time getting used to it.  Unfortunately for her I am quite a lousy cook and haven’t had a lot of luck making her meals for her.  My veggie soup came out way too salty.  My french toast tasted like cardboard and my spaghetti squash meal was gooey and gross. 

At the rate we’re going, she’s going to starve before these 6 weeks are finally over.  LOL