signs mom enrolled you in college

Verbatim, aside from brackets:

Hello....
I have been trying to register on line for [Class] on world campus, but have been unsuccessful. I need some kind of authorization for this class, I'm register as a non-degree, and will eventually sign up for [Masters Program]. My id # [#####] or [State Flagship U Abbreviation] id [#####]. I hope you can really help me out, the class already started last wk as you know. Thank you for your time and your assistance w/ this matter.
[Student Name]
[Phone]

Our reply:


[Student],
This is the University of [State], not [State] University. I am not sure what World Campus is. If you really mean the [Our University] and you wish to take [Course with similar number] at our campus in [City], please email [us] and give us your [Our University] ID and we will issue you this permit once you confirm you have the pre-req of College Chemistry.


How do you email the WRONG SCHOOL!? (Where you've never been enrolled!) Also, class apparently started last week at Your School, but we don't start till next week...did you not notice while on our website looking for our email?

and off we go

This past week I ran 5 miles and participated in two (relatively low contact) practices. On Saturday, I played 60 minutes (second half of our first 30, the second 30, and the second half of the 3rd 30 - "friendly" games can be so complicated for selections and playing time!) and almost died in incredible humidity.

And the famed foot is doing ok! I'm picking up my super-cool Bone Stimulator from the doctor this week, so that should help with the ongoing "un-union" (the very scientific term my doctor used) at the original break site.

So, Monday I'm kicking off training for the Philadelphia Half Marathon. I'm using Hal Higdon's Novice plan, so the first week is 3, 2, 3 and 4 miles. Easy enough...in theory anyway...I haven't broken ten miles in a week since...um....its been a while.

haven't sat on my soapbox in a while

Good video. It is depressing to remember how much inequity there is, even here, even now.

And thumbs up to Suze Orman!

see that??

Look at my widget. 2.15 miles today. 20:15 minutes.

Today was my first run since the doctor told me my sprain was really a small fracture. 10 days ago she told me two more weeks, but close enough. She was wishy washy about it anyway, and I'm not going back (per her saying I didn't need to), so I decided to see how it went.

1 mile in 9 minutes.
4 400s at an 8 min pace (2 min per 400) with 1 min walks between them.
AND I didn't feel like dying.

Felt good. Sweated. Am now continually looking at my foot to see if it is swelling. So far so good.

Now tomorrow, we'll see how practice goes (assuming its not swollen tomorrow, which would prevent playing this weekend...)! I have a feeling short sprints will be harder having only trained with the elliptical and pool the last month +.

The 3Day

I'm just about to the half-way point on my fundraising! I got a fabulous donation last week that has kicked me back in gear. While I've been hurt most of the summer and training as been limited, I'm starting to get excited again for this experience.

Want to contribute to the fight against Breast Cancer? Click the handy Widget just below!

impending fall

Things I'm looking forward to:

• Slightly cooler weather, allowing me to wear sleeves to work and maybe a smidgen more makeup than mascara
• Slightly less humid weather, allowing my hair to maintain its blow-dry more than one minute after leaving the house
• My Professional Seminar class, aka Dissertation Writing 101
• Being able to run again
• Playing a little rugby this fall (and I better really enjoy it since this is the end of the road)
• Coaching a little this fall and working on that D4 (heh) championship.
  

Things I'm on the fence about:

• My qualitative analysis class (too little math)
• Work in general
• Having to work back up to where I was, running wise, before getting hurt
  

Things I am not looking forward to:

• The commute fiasco of rugby practice when you work in the city, live in the suburbs, and somehow need to retrieve the car and dog between these
• The timing and commute fiascoes for both Princess Charming and I for the days both the team I play for and coach have practice
• The impending winter weather
• Always having (school) work hanging over my head (work work, I can generally ignore after my evening email peruse).
• The cost of rugby travel
  

goals for the weeks

I really should number these things.

Last week was a big fail.

Kitchen paint mistakes clean up - Nope
Paint den ceiling -Its 2/3 done.
Lift 3 times - just 2
3 cardio sessions - hm. I can't really remember. 1 I think, plus 2 30 min walks with the dog.
A positive visit to the podiatrist that clears me for rugby camp this weekend - 2 more weeks till I'm allowed to run, and even then I'm suppossed to "take it easy".

So moving on to this week...
I'm aiming for the same - kitchen cleaning, paint den, lifting and some cardio - but am going to (watch) practice Tues/Thurs night, so we'll see. I do have all weekend free so maybe that'll help :)

3 weeks till classes start. Eek.

rugby camp

camp + small fracture from 7 weeks ago = lots of time sweating in the sun but not doing a damn thing.

Its really bizarre to spend two full, long days in rugby land and not be sore. (Actually, my shoulders are a tad tight, as I got to participate in lineouts yesterday, but I am nowhere near as tired as I should be).

12 more days till I'm cleared to run again. But can I "take it easy" as Dr. W told me to? Did she really believe me when I told her I still wanted to do the Philly Half in November AND play this fall? Did she realize I was serious when I told her I wanted to play in at least a couple of games? I'm not sure, and not 100% sure I want to know :)

Not related to me, about 8 of my college kids came to camp and did fabulously with all the senior side players, so I'm really excited about their season (and their impending D4 "national" championship).

things I have issues with

Being on email at 12:30 am and 7 am and again at 8:47 pm tonight when I still make a couple thousand less than I did at 23.

Remind me why I quit engineering?

i might have a problem

Sunday, we bought two pounds of strawberries, two pounds of blueberries (I think anyway - it was a huge package) and a pint of raspberries. I made a huge fruit salad from it. I packed 3 cups of it with Princess Charming's food for the week (no, I am not a psycho ration-er, but she takes most of her meals with her to work 90 miles from home).

That left me with about half of a gigantic pyrex bowl full of fruit salad (lets guess 6 or 8 cups). Today is Tuesday.
I am out of fruit.

My problem is that fresh berries are kind of expensive, and I want to go buy more tomorrow.
I suppose this isn't a terrible problem to have in the scheme of things. It is a wonderful indulgence, and if I have a $30/week habit of fresh berries now till its out of season ($5 for a single half pint of raspberries in mid-winter doesn't work for me), I think that is ok.

explain please

(Yes, I snapped this furtively while in line for my fancy overpriced but amazing salad).

The back buckle says Gucci. I don't care if its Gucci (or if its real). You're wearing a fanny pack. And, you're wearing the fanny pack with what I assume are your gym clothes, unless full body spandex has also made an unfortunate comeback, so you're not even wearing it fashionably. Can you wear a fanny pack fashionably?

goals for the week

Last week went OK...

Kitchen paint touch ups - check
Kitchen ceiling - check
Lift 3 times - only 2...but I did do 6 30 Day Shred sessions, so that counts for 1 total, right? :)
3 cardio sessions - 4 - two elliptical, 2 swim!

This week...

Kitchen paint mistakes clean up
Paint den ceiling
Lift 3 times
3 cardio sessions
A positive visit to the podiatrist that clears me for rugby camp this weekend (ok, out of my hands, but its still sort of a goal, right?)

Alaska Cruise

Cruise fabulousness.

We've never been on a cruise before, so you can understand how awestruck we were by the Norwegian Star. 14 decks, 2 pools (plus slides and some hot tubs), over a dozen restaurants, a movie theater, a game room, etc...

Our cruise was round trip Seattle, with 2 "sea days" to rest and relax.

First stop: Ketchikan. The southeast peninsula of Alaska is a rain forest, getting over 140 inches of rain a year. Its also surprisingly temperate (well, if by temperate you mean not frozen...its chilly year round). Given this was our belated honeymoon, we decided to spring for awesome excursions. First up: Ziplining in the canopy! 8 zips through the trees, a few hundred feet up in the air, for as long as 800 feet at a time (well over a minute of free fall...er...slide). There were also three suspended bridges. Needless to say, Princess Charming had the camera the whole time, as I had my hands full holding onto cables (yes, we were triple clipped onto the cables, but its still nerve racking to be on a 10 ft diameter platform 300 feet off the ground with 9 other people!)
Next up: Juneau. This Alaskan capital is only accessible by boat and plane, unless you're up for a longggg hike across one of the biggest glaciers in populated territory! Our sea (very calm bay-like sea!) kayaking trip gave a great view of the Mendenthal Glacier, the 6000 ft snow capped peaks, about half a dozen bald eagles, some jumping fish!, and a seal!
We went back to the boat a bit early for lunch, so my one regret of the trip is not walking around Juneau more.
Next stop: Skagway. Darling little town of 750 people. The National Park Service has done (and is doing) some excavations and has set up a little museum. The town was a key supply stop for the Yukon Gold Rush around 1900, so it has historical significance (especially when you think about how important the Gold Rush was to the development of the Pacific Northwest cities!).
Here we did a ride on a historical rail up into British Columbia, CA. I have no idea how this track was laid or how the miners made it - the end of this 25 mile train ride is several thousand feet up (and they mostly walked it up a 1 man wide path, 25-30 times to get their 1000 lbs of gear up!) and gets 40+ feet of snow in the winter with cold we don't want to think about!
We took a bike ride back down the Klondike Highway, including a pit stop to refill our water bottles from a 38 degree glacier fed waterfall.
After that, the boat turned south for our Inside Passage cruising and a stop at Prince Rupert (I imagine there's nice hiking there, since its a good sized terminal...and had a cute passport stamp...but we didn't do much there). The ice flows were so heavy on the normal route we couldn't go and had to take an alternate way. Really quite impressive. Besides a few more glaciers, we saw several seal families with their pups hanging out on the flows (oh, to have a digitial SLR with good zoom!).

And, alas, after another sea day, lots of good entertainment, several games of Scrabble (and Princess Charming's 83 point point word 'Blunder'), all good things must end.

suspense

Well, for me.

Next Friday morning is my follow up with the podiatrist about the sprain-that-wasn't (CT scan revealed a fracture in the old break and a lot of "ununion"...thanks low blood flow area)

So...can I play rugby this fall? Am I flying to Orlando for 1 day just to hang out and experience Air Tran? Should I be saving to go to FL and CA for playoffs? Should I be figuring out how I'm going to draft three dissertation chapters, take a second class, go to work, coach, and go to rugby AND feed the dog and shower without losing my mind? Can I run the Philly Distance Run? 9/16...unlikely, seeing as that's 4 weeks from next weekend and 2-3 days of elliptical isn't exactly the 20ish miles/week I'd like to have under my belt for a half, besides that is it a good idea to run a half 12 weeks after a fracture? Can I run the Philly Half Marathon in November? That would be 12 weeks from next weekend, perfect time to ramp up from 12ish miles/week to 20ish (Hal Higdon Novice!)...I could do it.

But, alas, planning for all of these things, figuring out how much travel (rugby) the fall can hold amid school etc., and allowing myself to obsess over athletic training of some sort is all on hold. Dr. W, your verdict next week about what I am permitted to do and when I am permitted to do so (I HAVE to listen since even if this fall is a wash, I'd like to not be out of commission for the rest of eternity) holds more weight than you know.

produce

Garden Harvest 2.
Harvest 1 yielded about a dozen tomatoes, a few jalapenos, and two large green peppers I cannot name, a good chunk of which went into an adaptation of Jo's Texas Caviar (it ended up being, due to cabinet contents, three cans of various beans, half an onion, some tomatoes and a couple of hot peppers from the garden, garlic and red wine vinegar....blended in the food processor into a dip. Definitely a thumbs up).

Sadly, I think those might be the only three green beans I get. I had about a dozen flourishing plants Sunday with little seedlings. Now I have three and a bunch of, effectively, sticks. I have a feeling its the rabbit that's been taunting Bailey in the yard in the mornings...

But, in positive garden things, I had my first ripe blueberry off our new bush today, and that was pretty sweet!

goals for the week...

Its August. How did that happen?

August 2 = two more weeks till rugby camp = 4 weeks till StL/Labor Day = 3-4 weeks till the floodgates at work = 4.5 weeks till the semester starts for me = approximately 28 weeks till this peaceful existance that allows for Wii and reading fiction on the train ends till late December (since the busy parts of work, rugby and school come in waves).

I've had almost a month school free, and since its off-season, I've had a lot of time on my hands for the last two weeks (we were away for a while). What have I gotten done? I've watched all of Jericho, done some gardening, and spent a lot of time not being anxious.

But its time to get moving...the kitchen makeover we started in MARCH still has some cosmetic touch ups to finish, I need to get serious about working out even though I am not allowed to run right now, and I really want to get the den wired and painted.

For this week, my goals are to finish the kitchen paint touch ups, do the kitchen ceiling, and lift three times & do at least 3 cardio sessions of some sort...