But... before I go there....
Ahh... a nice relaxing Sunday! Wow what a good weekend this is. I've been pretty lucky lately, that they all have been nice, this whole month! Yesterday morning I was up early. I met a friend of mine at 8:30 to get in a quick run. Still not as much mileage as I was hoping for, but for the first time in a while, I got in 3 days of some running. That's progress.
After running, I went straight to kickboxing. That was an incredible class! I love it SO much and really really missed it. I'm going to miss it when I can't go for 2 months (another story) so I've been trying to get in as much as I can right now.
When kickboxing was done, I headed over to my boyfriend's house. I ate my leftovers for lunch and chilled for a bit before a quick shower then headed out. Back in April at a fundraising party, I won a gift certificate for a haircut, so I FINALLY used it. I love this place too! It was only a basic wash/cut/dry, but she was great & did an amazing job. Plus, I really liked her. So I'll head back, even though its a bit more expensive.
After the haircut, I was back at my boyfriend's house. About a month ago he bought a 1948 Oldsmobile that he is going to be restoring. He has already taken a bunch of the body off and ripped out the whole interior. A friend of his came over to help him move it to the backyard yesterday so he can keep working on it there.
Since it doesn't have an engine or transmission or anything, they had to push it to get it into the backyard. But driveway on the side of the house it was parked on has stairs going down to the backyard. It needed to go into the back through the other side of the house, after they took out part of the fence. NICE!
So as they pushed it out of the driveway, across the sidewalk in front of the house and down the other side of the house into the backyard (landing on the damn patio we spent months of WEEKENDS working on), I got to SQUAT at the steering wheel and steer it around the house. Kind of funny! I couldn't see a thing over the dash since there isn't a front end to it, and I didn't know where I was going. Luckily it wasn't too bad.
Anyway... after that, I chilled for a bit as my boyfriend ate a very late lunch before I headed home to take care of a few things (feeding the cats and a few other things around the house). When I got back to my boyfriends, we watched a movie. I love doing that... laying in his arms watching a movie.
He has a HUGE project for work that he HAS to finish by Monday which he has spent most of the weekend working on. After the movie, he started working again. I feel asleep on the sofa before 10:30 & went to bed at 12:30. He was still working. I woke up when he came to bed at 2am.
The alarm on my cell went off at 6:30 but luckily we both fell back to sleep this morning. We were up around 7:30. I felt bad for him, cuz that's not a lot of sleep to have keep working all day. But that's pretty much what he's been doing.
We had breakfast with the news on, and he was working by 8:30. I had been trying to move the furniture around in his spare bedroom and needed him to help me out to finish it. After that, I ended up taking a nap on the sofa while the dog was on the floor next to me.
When I woke up, I finished cleaning the kitchen (the rest of the house I already did, plus all of his and my laundry). His dishwasher is broken, the computerized kind & he thinks its the motherboard, which isn't cheap. SO I washed ALL of the dishes that have been in there for a bit.
Yesterday I had gone food shopping (OMG I do not know anyone who eats more ice cream than him! Even more than me!) and picked a couple of things for his house, including one of those pre-cooked chicken, pasta & an onion. I had carrots, celery and chicken broth. So now sitting on the stove is a pot of chicken noodle soup. It is SO good! The whole house smells amazing too.
I'm planning on taking the dog for a walk in a bit, then heading over to my house. I'll hang out with the cats for a little while and also go through my clothes. Sadly, its time to pull out some fall/winter clothes. When I head back to my boyfriend's house, I'll bring those with me so I can wash them all after sitting for months. And the Pats game is on at 8pm tonight, so that'll be the night... well, after HE cooks dinner! I just want the soup I made and his stuffed portobello mushrooms. They are AMAZING.
So, yes, this weekend at my boyfriends house, I cleaned the entire house, cooked, did laundry and washed dishes. And I am VERY happy with all of that. How the hell did this become me?? When did this turn into what I wanted in my life? But I do! And that just shocks the hell out of me!
I am so happy and content just hanging out at his house, doing things for him. I love him and doing things that are good for him or easier for him or that make him happy all make ME happy. I never thought that this would be me.
Even yesterday... his parents got a dog. I was texting with his MOM. I love his mom, both of his parents, and his entire family! I would love to have an even closer relationship with all of them. I'm already looking forward to Sunday dinner next weekend. How messed up is that??
I don't know. This is what I want in my life. And I don't know when this switch happened. All I know is that it did.
Last weekend... hmm... Sad to try to remember! :) Saturday am I was at kickboxing. I think he was working on his car all weekend. I know I did a ton of laundry. I tired to help a little with the car, but there isn't too much I can do. I did take the dog for a walk on Saturday and Sunday last weekend. And Sunday the Pats game was at 1pm. He was with me to go to my house on Sunday to help me take out my super heavy trash.
I had last Monday off with a couple of appointments and was hanging out at his house with the dog in between. This is just what makes me happy!
The weekend before was my birthday. We went to Foxwoods for Sunday and Monday. It was so much fun. Neither of us won (didn't really lose much either) but we hung out and just had a nice time being together. I love that. SO much.
I don't know. He makes me happy. I want this. I want this to be my life and my future. With him. He makes me happy. He knows me more than anyone ever has. He knows what makes me happy, what I find funny or get upset about. He knows what makes me tick. And even still... I just don't feel like I'm judged by him. Ever. I am more me with him than I have ever been able to be with anyone else in my entire life... any friends I have ever had. He just gets me. Like no one has ever gotten me before.
SO... I do have a life other than my boyfriend... as hard as that might be to believe after everything I just wrote. :) Okay, him and I together did F-1 (like Go-Carts), racing, but higher speeds and we had to wear a fire suit to do it. SO much fun. I didn't lose with all the other guys in our group & I didn't suck either! I had a blast!
I went to Trapeze School with two of my friends and I ROCKED it. My friends kept telling me I needed to join the circus because I was that good! I can't wait to go back and do it again. We booked 2 more classes. I can't wait to learn more. But OMG was I sore. It just used muscles I'm not used to working. And talk about bruises! HOLY COW!! I looked like I got beat up!
That same night, the three of us plus one more went to the Sox game. That was so much fun too. I have great friends and I'm really really lucky to have them all in my life. In November I'm going to Puerto Rico with those three friends, plus two others. It really is a GREAT group. I'm really happy how it worked out for rooming. I'm with Laura and that's perfect for us. We might be in a little trouble though!
First, Laura and I are both ALWAYS late & the last to arrive for everything. Second, we are both always the last to leave places. Her and I met for dinner one night, maybe in March. We were sitting at the bar for dinner for FIVE HOURS! And that was just dinner. :) Most likely we'll be having some late nights out in San Juan.
Anyway... what else? F-1 Racing, Trapeze School, Sox game, upcoming Puerto Rico trip with the girls. What else?
OH! The Diva Dash! It was sponsored by Shape Magazine and they had 4 across the country. The "Boston" one was in Marshfield and was the only one in the northeast. The other 2 were in San Diego, Austin and Bolder. They had 5489 women in this race! HOLY COW!
I got a group together from the fitness group I organize. We were the South Shore Luna Chicks and there were 21 of us. We didn't all start together, but most of us were in the 10:30 start wave. It was so much fun. We all had matching shirts & it was really cute.
Hmm... what else do I have going on? I'm not happy with work, but that has been that way for a long time. I've been trying to get another full time job working as a trainer. I was offered one, but then he took it back. The only thing I can say is that I'm happy I hadn't given my notice yet to my full time job! That would have SUCKED. But I feel stuck since I was so close to getting what I really really want and then having it taken away.
I know it wasn't meant to be for whatever reason, but it still sucked. I was heartbroken over it. I'm hoping that something else works out. The one good thing that happened was that I figured out how much I really want this. I know this is what I want for my career. I've been working hard to get there and hopefully it will all work out sooner rather than later. We'll see. All I can do is keep working on it and trying to get there.
Oh, my health too! HA HA. That's funny. I had a cold for a while, completely knocked me out. I was just exhausted. My back is better but still sore. My hip too. Now that I'm trying to run more, and trying to train for a half marathon (that's what Puerto Rico is about... a destination, women's only, half marathon), we'll see how that works out.
Then there is my wrist. This is making me crazy! I broke it in 2008. Because the bone slipped, I had surgery to have 2 plates and 5 screws put in my wrist. It was fine for years. Last summer, it BLEW up. So much pain, swollen, and I couldn't move it. That was August of 2011. Then it was fine after about 2 weeks. The x-rays were fine and the new ortho my PC sent me to said all was good.
Fast forward to June 2012... happened again! I was just standing up, asking our IT guy at work about something and it started. Talk about pain! It brought tears to my eyes. I barely made it my desk. Someone drove me to the clinic where they gave me an anti-inflammatory injection, plus sent me for x-rays again. The next day I saw an orthopedic at the same office from the year before.
He wanted me to have an MRI to see what was going on. Even with the injection, it was still swollen and had an egg where the plates are. The MRI place wouldn't do it since I have the plates there. At that point, I was referred to another ortho at that office, the hand specialist. By the time I saw him, my hand was fine. He said to see him if happened again.
A few weeks later was my chance. I was again at work, but on the phone with someone sitting in another part of the office. I took Aleve right away and got ice on it right away which helped. I was at the ortho in a few days... same doctor. The swelling was going down by then. He said to keep doing what I was doing, if it happened again. I could have the plate out, but that might not help it. He had never seen this before. And he was on his tablet looking at other people's charts the entire 5 minutes he was with me. HATED him.
I made a decision then, that I wanted another opinion. I was going to call the original ortho who did the surgery in 2008. He was out of Beth Israel in Boston. Just for that alone, I trusted him more, rather than some south shore ortho who barely paid me any attention.
Another few weeks later (the weekend I had the F-1 racing!), I was at the movies on a Saturday night with my boyfriend and it started AGAIN. I didn't want to leave the movie, there was nothing I could do there or anywhere else. I took 2 Aleve and put my large drink on it for the swelling. I couldn't move it and it was so swollen again.
When we got back to the car, I took a video on my phone of my hand and wrist. Sometimes just a picture didn't show how bad it was. I moved the phone around my whole hand, showed my range of motion as well as how tense the tendons looked. That Monday I called Beth Israel to see if I could get an appointment with the original ortho.
Come to find out, he has an office he sees patients at twice a month right down the street from me! I was able to get an appointment for the following Monday. He took more x-rays, everything looked okay, but when I showed him the video, he couldn't believe how bad it got.
Because of the fingers involved, he thought it was more the median nerve. He recommended surgery to the hardware removed but also wanted another surgeon with him. She is also a hand orthopedic out of Beth Israel, but she has done carpal tunnel surgeries. He wanted her to do that because he thought that would help as well. I wanted to think about it a little bit before making a decision that day.
A few days later, I decided to go for it and make it sooner rather than later. With the trip to Puerto Rico, I wanted my hand to heal before going and I wanted to be able to get in running to train. So I called. He was out for the rest of that week, and the next Monday was Labor Day. I talked to him the following week. He had talked to the other ortho. She had SEEN my issue before! He was transferring me to her care, since she was more familiar with what was up with me. Great!
He scheduled me for an MRI in Boston. That was another whole mess (the Valium never kicked in, the appointment ended up being late, so I went about 45 minutes late, needed to get a different ride and overall had a panic attack about the whole thing.) My boyfriend ended up driving into Boston after he got out of work to pick me up, since I was done about an hour after I was originally supposed to be done. My original ride was coming straight from work to get me at 4:15. I was done at 5:20! Again... kudos to my boyfriend. He was amazing at calming me down when I freaked out about the MRI & was so great about coming to get me.
Then a week later, last Monday, I had my appointment with the new ortho. She's great. ANOTHER round of x-rays on my wrist, which said the same thing... all looks good. But the MRI showed that I have fluid in my tendons, from what she could see... so much hardware, it was hard to tell.
She told me that my tendons are reacting to the metal in there. If it continues to happen, my tendons could completely rupture. Again, she recommended surgery to have it all removed and she'll clean up the tendons when she's in there.
And now we are up to this week. Surgery is scheduled for this Thursday. I'll find out the time on Tuesday, but I asked for as early as possible... the first is at 7:30. Because the surgery is only an hour, my ride is supposed to hang around. I'll have to be there 2 hours before surgery for pre-op (if its at 7:30, I'd have to be there at 6:30 though). Then 1 hour for surgery and 60-90 minutes for recovery before heading home... with a quick stop at CVS for pain meds.
My boyfriend is going to work off of his iPad that day while I'm at the hospital and said he'd work from home that afternoon. He's going to stay with me when we're back.
I'm nervous but grateful that this will stop this from happening AGAIN. And I'm so happy that my boyfriend is the one taking me. He is so great when I am upset about something. He's just calming and I don't, just great! When I freaked out at the MRI, his voice is what helped me. When the job I wanted as a trainer was taken back, he just held me and said all the right things as he wiped my tears. I know I'm going to be so nervous that day and could possibly have another panic attack about it. Having him there to calm me down is already making me feel better. Although I have already tried to warn him for what he could be in for! :) The MRI was NOTHING compared to how I could be in pre-op!
So, that's everything in my life for the past 2 months. Work sucks, my boyfriend is amazing and I have great friends. As always, I have more good in my life than bad. And I'm happy.
I don't know what I'm doing for my birthday resolutions yet. I don't know what I want for next year. For some reason, that's a ton of pressure on me right now. So many things in transition right now... I'm always at my boyfriend's house and will most likely be moving in with him. I hate my job and want a new one in a brand new career, if I can afford it. How do I set goals when I'm not sure where I'm going to be living or working?? Maybe those are part of my goals, who knows. So I do have more to think about for my 37 review and 38 goals... maybe that's later tonight after I head back to my apartment and get back to my boyfriends house (my laptop has basically been ONLY at his house for the past 4 months... I canceled the internet service I had with Comcast since my laptop is never there.)
And otherwise... here are a few pictures to show what I've been up to!
F-1 Racing at F-1 Outdoor in Bridgewater.
Me before racing.
Me with the boyfriend just before our race.
Trapeze School.
With Christin and Laura before starting.
Me FLYING!
After I did a tuck to get off the bar.
Another tuck off the bar.
Only one in the class to get the "Catch" on both tries!
After Trapeze School, Kristin took us to the Sox game.
GREAT SEATS!
Diva Dash, final obstacle, climbing down with Christine.
Christine and me stopping for a picture before racing to the finish!
All 10:30 South Shore Luna Chicks in the Diva Dash,
including Jill & Carrie who are also going to Puerto Rico!
The day before my Birthday... perfect way to start the weekend. :)
