In a Flash, It Takes Hold of My Heart

I'm pretty sure I've already said this on here (because apparently, I think I'm witty), but I do believe they should do a sequel to the 1983 blockbuster, but just change the name to "Hot Flashdance". Jennifer Beales is in her 50's now and she probably wouldn't even have to act. Instead of the final scene being her big audition, they would have the dance where she pours the water on herself. All the middle aged ladies in the audience would cheer at how much cooler she must be, and instead of meeting the guy with the Porsche and the flowers and the dog at the very end, we would be able to watch her get a full nights sleep, without having to get up to pee or fling the covers off and on herself even once. What a fairy tale ending.

So, all of this is leading to me talking about hormones (or lack thereof)...Again. The last couple of months I've been having crazy hot flashes. You think it would just make sense that when my body gets overheated, the last thing I should do is drink hot tea, but it worked so well for dealing with the crazy cold temps outside, and I love it so much. So, now I'm weaning myself off of hot herbal tea at night.

Because I'm a weirdo about reading and researching everything, I've been checking out a bunch of articles about what causes hot flashes and how to calm them down. Like everything in my life right now, they appear to be brought on by hormone fluctuations and stress. So, to minimize them, I have learned to keep a glass of ice water near me as often as possible, and then when I do get a hot flash, to drink it up and also work on breathing and calming exercises. It's really effective.

Most recently, I read an article about the benefits of sour cherry juice (no sugar added, of course). Drinking about half a cup of very cold sour cherry juice right before bed every night is said to help with hot flashes and sleeplessness. I tried it for the first time last night and it seemed to help a little. Most of these more natural cures, can be subtle and take a little time. So, we'll see in two weeks if I get the fairy tale ending to my day, of getting a full nights sleep,without waking up to pee or to fling the covers on and off myself even once...

And Now I'm Ready to Feel Your Hand, And Lose My Heart on the Burning Sands.

Yeah, so I'm going to talk about the weather again. In my defense, I live in Iowa and we have very little else to talk about.

I'm not sure where they're moving all of this snow to, but it looks like we'll get some more soon. Sigh. I think we would all feel better if we could look at the ten day forecast and see it getting a little warmer and stop snowing. Right now, through March 10th, which happens to be when we change the clocks, we're still supposed to have sub zero temps next week and then we might get all the way up into the lower thirties, but with, you guessed it, good chances for snow.

On Saturday, it got into the thirties and we had a couple hour break in the rain, so I got to do an eight mile run outside. It felt great, but then the winds started to pick up and the temperature dropped and I said f*ck it, and I bought myself some flowers and some dark chocolate (it's heart healthy, damn it!) with sea salt and roasted almonds and I went home and put the flowers in a vase and ate the whole bar of chocolate. I did feel better for that fifteen minutes, though...

Archie does his best to cheer me up too. His new selfie taking skills are pretty impressive for a creature without opposable thumbs.

Today, though, I found the best remedy for the ass end of Winter doldrums...Puppies! One of my co-workers brought in her red Labrador puppy and his unstoppable cuteness has made my whole Tuesday better. So, if you live nearby and have a puppy and some extra time, I sure would love for you to come and visit me. In the mean time, I'll keep hoping for warmer days with less chances for snow.

Roam If You Want To. Without Wings, Without Wheels.

Since we're almost done with February, I figured I'd do my traveling through reading post from January.

I read six books in January. That's a lot less than I read in January 2018, but I was sick for most of that month back then, so I'm considering reading fewer books a good thing.

1.) The first book I read in January took me to Brazil, which is always nice while I'm stuck in Iowa in January. "Ways to Disappear", by Idra Novey was about an author with gambling debts disappears and her American translator flies to South America to help find her.

2.) The second book I read was part of my plan to read every Jane Austen book in 2019. "Emma" was just okay compared to "Pride and Prejudice" (which I loved). It got better as I read on, but it's always entertaining to travel to 19th century England, as long as I can just watch from afar and I don't have to live in their snobby social scene.

3.) The third book I read in January was "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All", by Alan Gurganus. There were parts I really liked, but with my self-diagnosed ADHD, I just couldn't deal with how looooong it was. Still, it was nice to go South for the Winter with this.

4.) "Forest Dark", by Nicole Krauss was my fourth book. It took me to Israel, where it was nice and warm. I got really into it at the beginning but it seemed to lose its momentum as it ambled along.

5.) The last two books I read in January were my favorites.  Everyone seems shocked that I hadn't read "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. I love Irving. I've heard him read twice and "The World According to Garp" was my favorite book in high school. I think it was just a timing thing. It came out when I was in college and a literature major and had no time to read anything I wasn't already assigned. It was definitely worth the wait. It was a great read and since I've never been to the East coast before, it's always nice to visit by book.

6.) "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin was the last and best book I read for the month. I really loved it. I got so wrapped up in the characters and descriptions. It felt odd to be so into a book that took place on a planet called Winter, when it was 50 below zero with the wind chill where I was, but I loved that voyage.'

So far I'm having fun traveling by books through February. Hopefully, I'll get around to talking about it sooner next month than I did this time.

Can I Sail through the Changin' Ocean Tides? Can I Handle the Seasons of My Life?

Thanks to Burne Sippy for the photo.

 It looks like I'm finally getting around to talking about races for 2018 with my final end of the year posts.
Since my hormones were plaguing me last year, I didn't get as much training or racing done as I wanted. Migraines and dizziness don't help for strength or fitness. Go figure. By the end of the year, some of that craziness subsided and I was able to race more cyclocross than I had the last few years.

I was also able to do a couple of Time Trial races as part of the series we put on. As an old person, time trialing, since I don't have to try to keep up with a pack of very fit 20/30 years old women, appeals to me. This is a very hilly course, which meant I wasn't as strong as I could've been, but it's a good course for me to work on and hopefully get better.

In June I tried to do the Pigman Triathlon. I have raced it many times with mixed results, and this year was the worst result. I didn't finish it. I had a bad cold, but I thought I could at least do it very slowly. Boy, was I wrong. It was a really windy day and that made the water really choppy in the swim section. I suck at the swim and just barely get through it, so I can do the rest of the race. This year, I couldn't breathe very well and every time I lifted my head out of the water, I got slammed by a big wall of water and then I started to panic. I decided that it wasn't my day and I climbed in the boat. The rescue people were really nice and friendly and concerned and great at their jobs.

I was sad to pull the plug, but it wasn't worth dying for and I've already signed up for this year's race. We'll see what happens...

I only ended up doing one running race last year, which is really weird for me. Luckily, it was for a really great cause. I ran along with Stinky and helped annoy her into getting a PR. Mom powers!

So, like I said, I was able to do more cyclocross races than I have in a few years. Yea! I did eleven cyclocross races altogether. I wasn't the most competitive I've ever been, but I'm also getting older and heavier. So, I'll just keep trying to do better than I did the last race, and try not to compare myself to other people too much.

I ended my race season with a bang. I was able to do two races at Nationals in Louisville. I went back to having hormone problems again in November, so I wasn't able to train as much as I wished I could have. I was just glad I felt well enough to race at all. I had a blast in Louisville and loved their course. One of my races was fairly muddy and slippery, and the other one was not completely dry, it was still tacky mud and easier to ride.

As with everything, my 2018 was good and bad at different points. I was happy to be able to race more cyclocross, and sad that I couldn't race more earlier in the year. I've already signed up for three races for 2019 so far: a 10K run in Des Moines in March, a 4 mile trail run in Iowa City in April, and the Pigman Sprint Triathlon in June. Let's hope my body lets me do them.

You Have to Sleep Late When You Can. And All Your Bad Days Will End.

I had a really bad day on Wednesday. I have these days where I feel like my equilibrium is off, and I had that on Wednesday. Everything I said came out wrong and I hit my head once and my funny bone twice all on the same day. Lucky for me, I had some vacation time and the next day was supposed to be 40 degrees. So, I asked my boss if I could take the day off and MAN, was that the best idea I've had in a very long time.

When I woke up at 7:45, I remembered it was my mom's birthday. She would have been 87 years old. Weird to think.

Since I had had such a crappy day the day before, I decided to chill out and just do exactly what I wanted to do...For the most part.

That meant that I read an entire novel, the fourth in the "Tales of the City" series. It was perfect escapism and all that reading, gave the cats an excuse to lie all over me.

I waited a bit for the warm day to melt some of sheets of ice on the sidewalk, but then I put on my screw shoes and went out for a run.

The first mile or so, I was exhausted and I wasn't sure how far I'd be able to go, but then the endorphins kicked in and everything was wonderful. I even decided to extend my run and ended up going a little over seven miles.

At one point, I came across these snow hearts that someone made next to the sidewalk, So much love.

I got home and spent about an hour outside trying to get as much ice off of our driveway and sidewalks as possible before it froze back up when the wind shifted later in the day. I also did a bunch of laundry and tidied things up. I didn't really clean, I was just going for the appearance of clean. You know, my usual deal.

Since John's mom was finally able to move out of the rehab area and up to her regular room, John headed over there after work and helped her move back and get everything set up so she could function with her walker.

Stinky had to work at Micky's, but Coadster was free and we went to check out La Regia, a Mexican restaurant that gets rave reviews. I thought it might not be as busy as fancier places on Valentine's Day, but I was wrong. It was packed, but the service was good and they got our food out to us pretty quickly. I had the papas tacos and they were amazing.

So, my day off was everything I needed and coming back to work today was just fine. I love giving myself presents on Valentine's Day.

If I Had a Day That I Could Give You, I'd Give to You a Day Just Like Today

Well, Kids. It's been another crazy Winter week in Iowa. Check out the size of that icicle in the above photo! That was caused by the almost 50 degree temps last weekend after snow and minus 40 degree temps just a couple of days before. Don't worry. We know we need to pressure wash the front of our house and we did just buy a pressure washer, it's been too damn cold to use it yet.

A woman I work with watches all of those cold case shows and says that the best way to get away with killing someone is to stab them with an icicle. You can just melt it and all the evidence disappears. Just in case you know someone who needs killin'...

The key words this week in Iowa have been freezing rain and ice. I was only able to run outside once this week. So, what did we do instead? Well, we got started talking about made for TV movies. If you've ever met me, you know how much I love made for TV movies. I love to make fun of them, but even though I'm making fun of them, I seriously love to watch them. When my friend A. and I were roommates and then later lived across the hall from each other in separate apartments, we watched many Sunday TV movies of the week together, We actually saw all three Long Island Lolita movies and then rated them. Of course, I thought the Drew Barrymore Amy Fisher was the best.

Anyway, the other day, John started talking about this made for TV movie he used to love when he was younger, because these are the kinds of fascinating conversations we have. (how jealous of our relationship are you now?) It was called "The Jericho Mile". It sounded familiar to me, but I don't think I ever saw it. Which is weird, because it's about a runner in prison. It starred Peter Strauss (who was almost in as many made for TV movies as Pamelyn Ferdin or Cliff De Young) and Brian Dennehy and it came out in 1979, so a lot of the inmates still spoke jive, which is one of my favorite dialects. So, John and I were able to find this beautiful film on Youtube and the best version of it had French subtitles. You can imagine how wonderful it was to see how the French translated jive. It was amazing. John kept apologizing for how cheesy it was, but I wouldn't listen to him. It was the perfect way to spend an icy evening in February in Iowa, and it would probably also be the perfect way to spend a balmy evening in May in Iowa too. It made me want to watch other memorable made for TV movies, like "Daughter of the Mind", just to hear Pamelyn Ferdin say, "Daddy, I hate being dead", "Sunshine", "Sunshine Christmas" and "Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story". It sounds like I know how I'm spending the rest of this Winter.

With the shape this Winter is taking, even Archie can get a little woebegone. One way for me to work through those darker feelings this week, was to plan our Summer vacation to Southern Utah. It's a trip I've wanted to take for many years. I reserved all of our airbnb's, cabins and glamping sites and I scheduled a tour of lower Antelope Canyon. If next week's weather is still bad, I'll start researching the best hikes, bike trails, and swimming holes. I feel better already.

I hope the weather wherever you are is better than ours and that you don't have such ready access to made for TV movies or gigantic, life ending, icicles as I do.