Happy New Year

A bit blurry (sorry) but still contains the very best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year!!

The purse, the first hung pic and stuff....

Isn't she beautiful?? It's like buttah! Yep, that's the ordered purse from the Showtime show, Weeds. I love her!! Bayley does too!

Hung our first picture bought on our trip to Seattle in the summer of 2005 by a street vendor. We have wonderful memories of that trip and I fell in love with the amazing trails that I ran there. Hopefully, one day I'll be back!

A birthday passed by. I got a terrific gift from sweet Haight! I mentioned this juicer while we were watching a bio on Jack La Lanne's life (he still wears those tight jumpsuits). Yes, the man listens closely to me!

I'm reading up on fasting and detoxing plans. I think I'm going to try one and see how it goes. I've emeshed myself in this book, Amazon.com: How to Get Well: Dr. Airola's Handbook of Natural Healing: Books: Paavo Airola. When I was in nursing school, during my nutrition course, I was committed to eat more nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables based on what I was learning. Raising kids made that very difficult, but now its my turn to do for me.....so I'm back to what I truly believe in.

Having met lots of foreign caregivers of my patients, I've been learning their ways of healing skin problems, digestive problems and healthier eating. I've used what they've taught me as I care for other patients, steering away from medicines and expensive lotions with great success. One from Belize stated that her grandmother used to go into the backyard, pick an herb, either grind it up or boil it and use it to heal whatever ailed family members. We've gotten too far from that....all towards filling the pockets of drug companies. It's time we relearned all that doncha think?

TGIF

Been a long week. Back to work and very busy. On my first day back, an ex-coworker called with a position available at a hospital that sounds perfect for me. I have an interview next week to see how well it could fit into my life. I kept saying let me just finish the move and then I'll check out other jobs...this fell into my lap the first day back. In yiddish we call this "beschert"----"meant to be". Let's just see if it is.

Still at 25 miles of running for the week, with one day of weight training and one day of biking. I'm glad I didn't lose any steam with my running due to my move. But the weight training has been disappointing. I'm bringing over my hand weights and stability ball from my house so that I could return to that routine when I'm really scrunched for time. I enjoyed the weight machines at the club, but even though it's right in the building, I still had trouble dedicating a straight thru 45 minutes for it a second time this week.

Tomorrow I plan on running long on the trails up north. I've missed running outside, especially on trails, so I'm very much looking forward to revitalizing my soul out there. I couldn't find anyone to run with me, and that could be a blessing in disguise. This trail is busy enough on the weekends for me not to be afraid of my safety and the weather is looking good--so it's all coming together.

I've continued to see Ximena, the deep tissue body work gal, every other week. She gets soooo deep into my body that I have bruises a week after seeing her. She has gotten rid of some very long-standing tightness in my body. She's also been a terrific resource for alternative medicine....an area I want to include more in my life. This week she was talking about detoxing and gave me sites to check out, so I'll share: www.herbdoc.com and this one: Welcome to Karyn's.

Reminder to self: charge up the ipod and the garmin tonight!!

All Coming together...

....at the new homestead. I'm really loving being a citygirl again. I can walk everywhere to do my chores. I think the city is where I most fit in, though a little country retreat every now and then would be nice. I do miss running on the trails.

I've been running on the treadmill down at the club all week since the frigid temps have continued throughout the week. They are just breaking today, so, hopefully, I'll get outside again. I'll have to figure out my routes to take here. I'm kind of leery as I run while it's still dark out, so I'm thinking I'll be on the treadmill a bit longer....at least until the sun rises around 5 am (what is that....like April???...oh crap).

I haven't gotten to a yoga class yet. But I did do a full body workout on the weight machines and with free weights. I printed out a program from www.leannesslifestyle.com They have a muscle professor program that you can pick from. Then you plug in the weights you used after you're done and they increase it for you the next time around. So I walked around the club with my little paper and pen trying to find what machines fit these descriptions. I'll probably be tweaking it as time goes on, but at least I got that going. I'm still shooting for weight training 3x week.

One of the trainers at the club is from my other club and my daughter worked out with him there. So he snagged her for a free workout and is now trying to get her (or me rather) to sign her up for a whole set of personal training. Hmmm.....she's 19 years old...when I was 19 I worked my butt off, went to college and paid for all my extracurricular activities. And my purses, I was (still am) BIG on a new purse every year. So...she's cut off. She doesnt like this idea too much--oh well...life sucks sometimes!

Speaking of purses....(weaving away from running....so the men can be excused) my daughter had me watch a new show on Showtime, Weeds....she says the mom on it reminds her of me (geesh..the mom sells weed in a beigy, boring, upscale community---well not that part she says, but the way that mom is so cool ) anyways I digress.....I was watching it and fell in love with her purse. We women are nuts, ya know?? So I went online, and low and behold (do people say that crappy saying anymore?) they had a website devoted to the clothing and such from the show. How crazy is that??? And how much more crazy is that I ORDERED THE FREAKING PURSE??? ok...that's my crazy woman confession for the month. I'm glad I got that out. I'll be back to running next time. (and I'll take a pic of the purse when it comes in) :)

2nd week off

ahhhh......all is working out well. I moved, I unpacked and I got reconnected to the internet after SIX days of no connection!! How did we live before we had the computer??? Before TV?? Well, I had those days to remind myself. Remember Little House on the Prairie---where they sat around and TALKED to each other all night long???? Yep...lots of talking, reading, quiet time!! Who knew?????

The first two days after my move, the weather was beautiful. 50 degrees. I ran along Lake Michigan and into the Northwestern University campus. Oh it was amazing. (My ex husband actually proposed to me on the rocks of the University, so it was with warm thoughts when I passed that spot).

Then the storm hit!! I think we got 6 inches of snow by me. Thankfully, I didn't have to work. And double thankfully I have a beautiful new health club in my condo building. So off I trotted in my shorts and tank to the elevators connecting to the club. It was great.....except now I have to readjust to the temperature. I was sweating bullets.

The second day I went, I took a SUCCEED tab before I started and that helped a lot. I'm not happy being forced back on the treadmill, but I won't complain due to the convenience. They have some yoga classes that I'll be going to this week. I have NEVER taken a yoga class. I'm waaaay overdue!