Lovely Blog Award



Caroline tagged me a while ago for the Lovely Blog Award.  I'd say Canada Day is a pretty appropriate day to finally get around to it! :)

The rules:

1. Thank the person who awarded the award : Thanks Caroline!
2. Tell seven random things about yourself that no one knows....ha...good luck with this as much as I overshare
3. Pass on the award to 7 blogger pals...this has been going around enough that you've probably all been tagged already.

Seven things...

1.  Bike injuries, part 1: After Dirty Kanza and again after Indian Camp Creek, my right pinkie and ring fingers were numb.  It took about a week to go away after DK, and it's still going on a week after ICC.  It was bad enough after Indian Camp Creek that I needed Jeff to help me wash my hair because I had a hard time using that hand.  At first it was kind of funny...haha my fingers are numb, I can't fully extend them...but I'm really over it.  My hand strength is way low, and you use your pinkie and ring finger for way more than you'd think.

Source: http://www.hughston.com/hha/a_15_3_2.htm
I'd emailed Karen, who regularly races long events, to see what she does to avoid this, and she sent me the above link to a page about cyclist's hand injuries.  Sounds like handlebar palsy.  I used the gift certificates I got in the race drawing to buy a new set of ergonomic grips for my bike...hopefully that'll help in my next endurance race...because it only took me a couple days to decide yes, there will be another one. :)

2.  Bike injuries, part 2:

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Remember how I fell at ICC (twice) and hit my elbow (twice)? The hand injury is pretty annoying; the elbow injury is pretty entertaining.  I've gotten kind of a kick out of watching the technicolor shades wash across my elbow.  Weirdly, it hurts more now than it did in the first days after I fell, which thankfully still isn't all that much.

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A fewdays ago
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Today
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Today
3.  Nathan, my newly 18 year old son, is in Texas playing in his last club volleyball tournament.  I woke up this morning bummed that I wasn't there, but money is tight and next weekend we're playing in the mud volleyball tournament that has been Jeff's family tradition for the past 25+ years.

Hannibal 2010

Luckily, I have some nice friends who kept me up to date on the matches...both of whose initial texts started with some version of "What's with your son's tattoo?"...a tattoo that was news to me.  I'm not in the anti-tattoo camp, but I am in the "anti-spending your graduation money on things like tattoos when you don't have a job or your tuition fully covered" camp.  Not to mention being very disappointed that he spent a week hiding it from me.  Like I told him today, if you want to make adult decisions, make them like an adult...and there's nothing grown up about doing something and then hiding it from your mommy.  Am I overreacting to be upset about this?

Source

4.  I was very unhappy in my first marriage.  Not distraught like some terrible trauma just happened, but a constant, low grade "down" until bad seemed normal and not-so-bad seemed to feel like good.  I was miserable and my family didn't like him, but I was really committed to sticking it out. One day, I was talking about him with a girl who was very into astrologyand she asked what our signs were.  When I told her I was an Aries and he was a Cancer, she gasped: "That's the worst possible match for you!!  You're a fire sign, and he just dumps cold water over all your ideas." I was hit with an almost electric shock of recognition.  Yes! That's it EXACTLY.  Now, I'll occasionally read my horoscope, but I don't believe believe in them.  Even so, that was the first time I really thought about ending my marriage.  I mean, even the stars were against us.  (That said, it took him leaving me to end things.)

5.  It's flipping hot here.  Like highs between 105-109.  The other day we got in the car to read this on the dashboard temperature gauge:

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WTF...like an over in there.
Some friends have experiemented with baking cookies on their dashboard and frying an egg on the ground.  I think the cookie thing more or less worked.

6.  We had a yard sale yesterday...because who doesn't make plans to spend the entire day sitting outside when the temperature is forecast to be 104 (and it's NOT a dry heat)? We had slow traffic for several hours, but we did manage to get rid of quite a bit of stuff.  Even better, packing the unsold items back away, I culled 8 grocery sacks and 2 large boxes of items to donate to Goodwill.  As God is my witness, someday our house will no longer be mistake for a Hoarders episode.

Source

7.  We were supposed to head down to Meramec State Park to float the river today, but Jeff was concerned that it might not be a great plan since a) we weren't sure about water levels b) it was supposed to be really hot and c) we'd have to find a back from the end of the float to our car at the put-in.  My plan was to ride my bike the few miles back, but that brought up more issues from him.  The end result: we stayed home.  I know I could have argued and gotten my way, but often when I do that things work out for me to think I should have listened to him in the first place, so I tried to take staying home with a good attitude.  Our next plan was bowling (which might have been interesting in light of #1 above), but the bowling alley was closed due to a power outage, so plan C was a movie at the cheap show.  Very not the same as a float trip, but Battleship was surprisingly entertaining, and the part with the old Navy sailors brought tears to my eyes.


8. A bonus item!! Last night I finished reading Wild, by Cheryl Strayed.  In it, she writes about her 1,000+ mile solo hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.  It sounded pretty incredible.  I'm not sure I like her all that much, but I may just have a new item on my bucket list.

Comments

  1. if you through hike the PCT without me i will end you. loved that book sooooo much!

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  2. I've always been interested in those long thruhikes, I'll add this to my reading list.

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  3. I'd love to hear more about the Strayed book (particularly why you may not like her--was she as self-centered as that Eat Pray Love woman??).

    And would you think I'm a *huge* wimp if I told you my hands hurt after an hour gripping the recumbent bike heart rate monitor bars? Yeah. Me too.

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  4. My mom was just telling me about Wild, so I added it to my queue of books-on-cd at the library. Looking forward to listening to it - though your review makes me wonder why you weren't crazy about her!

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  5. Sometimes I read about crazy awesome year long hikes and wish I'd taken time off after college to do something like that, before I had responsibilities.

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  6. I"m laughing at the seven things -- how long they are and your remark about oversharing.

    Man that is one sad looking elbow! Ouch.
    That astrology thing is interesting. I prob. haven't read anything about signs since I was 14 but that does sound like the truth for you. And why did he leave you? Idiot but thank goodness, right?
    And I am not sure the temperature is about YOU but man is that hot! I don't ever want to see even 100 degrees around here and to my knowledge it has never hit that. Today was in the 70s and perfect. Not bragging. Just telling you something about me.
    And I am with your husband.There is nothing like a movie in an air conditioned theater on a hot day!

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  7. Ouch on your elbow. That looks painful!

    Regarding the tattoo, I went for months without telling my parents about mine :-). What kind of tat did he get?

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  8. You should consider a local expedition on the Ozark Trail before the Pacific Crest Trail. There is a trip of gigantic proportions already in the planning stages....

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  9. I'm so glad you've taken the most injuries on a bike category from me...you have some pretty good doozies there, SK! I have got to imagine those are painful. Soak in some Epsom salts, that helps the bruises. My motherly tip for the day :).

    I'm smiling at your list of 7 things. Most people write, "I hate broccoli" and not a novel for each topic. But that's what I love most about you...you can out-write anyone in blog land, even me (I'm working on my RR from last week...trying to reduce it to about 4000 words vs the 8000 it currently is :).

    xo

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  10. thank you for playing!

    I am curious like Terzah about the book and why you dont like the author...I did not care for Elizabeth Gilbert at all...so I am wondering about this one!

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  11. wow heel up from all those bumps and bruises. hmm ... i think i need to give that book a read. i have hiked portions of the Pacific Crest Trail.

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