Everything is getting better

I'm finally getting some range of motion back in my neck and managed to swim about 500 yards in the pool yesterday which felt amazing! I am really getting sick of aqua jogging and running on the indoor track. I've had to modify the core workout program for the past two weeks to remove weight lifting and most of the physioball stuff as it strained my neck. It sucks to start a program and get injured one week into it but you just have to get over it and let yourself heal.

I've started to unpack my office/sewing room and I'm excited about making PowerDry hats and adding fleece bun warmers (skirts) to my web store. I think I'll offer free products to people who read my blog all next week to help promote the new products. I love this stuff!

Below are the results of the re-painting of tribabe.com headquarters:


The orange was just too horrible for words so we repainted with "mocha" and "rice paper" ooh la la. Bill has to be relieved about this project being done because I obsessed over paint chips for two weeks before Gayle finally picked two colors for me. I even brought the paint samples to bed one night so I could look them over one last time. Stupid obsessive personality disorder.

Did you see the truck that hit me?

Moving is not easy. My body feels like I just did a 1/2 Ironman. My quads, hips, calves and gluts are totally fried. My shoulders, biceps, and back and fatigued. My head hurts, either from paint fumes or just plain exhaustion. I can't wait to hit the hot tub at noon today, we'll see about aqua jogging, could be a big zero there.

WHO BUYS A TWO STORY HOUSE? Crazy people, that's who.

Thanks to our best friends in the world (they are the best!) and my hard working parents, the move went amazingly well. We had almost everything moved to the new house on Saturday and we were eating warm stew (thanks mom) and enjoying chocolate cake for dessert (thanks mom) in new place by 1pm.

Then my parent's started painting the office while Bill and I tried to unpack. Lavs stayed to make sure the satellite TV was functioning and helped mount the new art I bought (yeah!!!!) so both Bill and I were happy by Saturday evening.

My favorite part of the move happened after we got the truck unloaded and Bill called me outside and said, "We want your opinion on something," and led me to the garage where everyone was standing around. HA HA HA someone had mounted Bill's captain's wheel over the garage and they said, "since you live on Sternwheeler Drive..."

Our friend's know I have a "problem" with Bill's "unique furnishings" (that's what my mom calls his odd furniture) so they thought it would be funny to mount this old thing to the house.

Lovely. Glad everyone got a good laugh at my expense. Aren't you all sooooo cute? Thank goodness we're part of a development that won't allow such things to be mounted to a house (at least that's what I told everyone).

So the joke was on me which is OK as long as that cog wheel table isn't in the living room anymore.

Soooooo sad

We took this photo of the sun rising about a year ago from the back deck of our rental house. This lovely scene played out from our bedroom window on clear mornings.

I'm having a hard time letting go of this.

Returning home from work everyday to be greeted by fields of green and the sun setting between in blue hills. I felt like I was a part of the place that I lived, like I understood the geography and appreciated this beauty in a way all the people commuting home in the cars never could.

It's sad to say goodbye. Today won't be easy. I might have to get off work early to go for a trail run to make myself feel better. Tomorrow, we move. I hope it's home for a while because I'm getting too old for change.

Lazy cat doesn't help with move

I made the kitty a fancy new pillow to sleep on near the fireplace at the new house and she hasn't gotten off of it since I set it out last weekend. I put a little bit of cat nip in it and I caught her licking the pillow last night. Kinda freaky.

I am impressed by her dedication to napping.

She is almost oblivious to the boxes piling up around her except last night we heard a loud noise and found her hiding out in a box. She's really helpful. I think she'll like her new yard and the covered deck behind the house since the rain really doesn't suit her sensibilities. Meow.

No workouts for me today, just signing papers and packing. We should get the keys for the new house tomorrow and the fun will begin!

Fog and trails

It finally stopped raining for a few days so I took my lunch break yesterday on a nearby trail for a fabulous run in the fog. I missed this trail, it's been months since I was last on it and the last time was on a mountain bike and I was less than relaxed trying to make the switchbacks.

Yesterday the fog entrenched the hills and some sheep in a nearby field were loudly braying. It was a surreal scene and my mind cleared quickly. If only I didn't have to go back to work afterwards. I have to get back on these trails regularly, should be easier to get motivated when we get a dog.

We close on our first home tomorrow. I feel like I've been climbing a mountain and I'm almost to the top. The big move is this weekend and then... peace.

Crazy old man with mad cow's disease

Griz mounting his bike during a century ride in the rain on Saturday. Old Griz likes to say the road to Kona is a cold and wet one in Oregon. Gayle decided that Griz has Mad Cow's disease, that's why he acts so crazy.

Bill joined Griz for part of the ride, I stayed in and worked on new house decorating projects. I'm still obsessing over paint color for the office/sewing room. Sadly, I think I'm going to end up painting the walls grey.

I'm having a nasty muscle spasm in my neck so I'm not doing so good. I'm regretting the skiing incident more everyday. I'll be back at the chiropractor tomorrow, begging for forgiveness. He told me not to swim for 2 weeks and I made it one week before I tiptoed to the pool. I'm regretting that now too. Not feeling smart or good tonight.

It's flooding but my hair is blown dry

Our local hwy is flooded from RAIN so I haven't been able to bike commute or bike much at all. It's tooo wet! Since I strained my neck skiing, I haven't been able to swim this week either.

But my hair looks good so who cares? Seriously, I normally have goofy hairstyles from swimming and biking so it's pretty fun to have the blown dry look going on. I almost feel like a chick.

Wine pic

One of the best things I did this year was make some hats for Belle Vallee cellars. It was one of my favorite jobs because the owner shared some of his fabulous wine with me and I now know what good local wine tastes like.

I'm looking forward to opening a bottle of Grand Cuvee after we move into our house next weekend. I should said IF we move next weekend. The closing date is apparently a moving target. I'm less than thrilled with the home buying process and can't wait to put it all behind me. It makes renting an apartment seem so simple it's tempting to burn all the papers and tell everyone to go to... but I won't do that, I'm just irritated. Ready to move on with life and not be locked in to this paperwork fiasco.

Face plant on the bunny slope

Noooo don't go up there!

I took up X country skiing so I could be in the snow with minimal chance of injury so don't ask me what I was doing on a ski lift with X skiis strapped on yesterday. We decided to check out the upper nordic trail at HooDoo which gave us some great views but that meant we had to ski down once we were done. Even the easy hill looked STEEP to me but I wasn't willing to take my skiis off and walk down so we inched our way down until the last hill when I decided to go for it... and ended my downward spiral with a face plant. I laughed at the time (like when I crash mt biking it's really funny until the next day) but even then I thought, "That's going to hurt tomorrow" and low and behold: my neck is stiff and I woke up in pain.

B why didn't you make me walk down?

Not great decision making on my part. I managed to get out the door today by noon and went to look at Tempurpedic beds with Bill and they felt great. We'll see if he's ready to spend the money, it's his investment so it will be interesting to watch his internal battles with spending.

I'm going to take a nap and see if I can get some work done later tonight. It didn't help that we drank a bunch of pop yesterday after skiing so I barely slept last night. The cat decided she was cold and hogged the bed and Bill was restless so I feel pretty dang tired. Thank goodness I didn't have to work today!

Great pic

I was taking a photo of Chamois and the pastel drawing in the background when Tully decided to liven things up. Chamois doesn't look too happy because she needs knee surgery so it's a good thing mommie is selling her art because the surgery isn't cheap. I like this photo almost as much as the art! One more plug for Tasman Studios and Carrie's beautiful art.

Today was fabulous: got my hair done, went to Carrie's to pick out art, and then the skies were clear so I hopped on my long neglected triathlon bike and went for a short 18 miler. It would have been short if it wasn't gale force winds that ended with a nice rain shower that made me feel like I was biking in a hurricane. Now I know why I haven't been riding my bike lately. The day ended with a visit from Griz and Gayle for some football watching YEAH SEAHAWKS and Gayle brought us a homemade mexican dinner because she just got back from Cancun but didn't eat any Mexican food (don't ask!)

Here's a pic from the ride, it has been raining so much that lakes have formed where there is normally a dry field. Kind of pretty:

BONK! No wait, I want to paint!

I'm starting to bonk. It's 11:30 am and I'm still tired. I have bags under my eyes and several to-do lists sitting my desk. Bill is looking for a new bed for us today, I would like to test it out right about now. At least I didn't have to run in the rain yesterday. I'm skipping masters swim at noon today and will lift weights instead, I'm too tired to bust my butt in swim class. I'll have to make up the swim sometime this weekend... no problem.

We had our home inspection yesterday, everything is great and I took the opportunity to measure several rooms so we can plan where to put furniture. The living room is smaller than what I thought so we will only be able to use one couch. We might have to buy a new couch in the future.

My biggest concern with the new house is the "office" which will become my sewing room. The previous owner painted the room brown and orange. They must have been A MAN BABY (I'm talking like Austin Powers). So I get to figure out how to repaint the room in more neutral colors for my purposes and for the future owners. It won't be easy, what colors go with these dark wood cabinets? Sarah is going to advise me this weekend on painting since she just repainted her living room. I hope she can help me because I am freaked by this project. Help!

Freaky weather cramping my style

I've been so distracted with our home purchasing process that I didn't realize we had a 3 day weekend coming up. It looks like we'll shop and pack Saturday, hit the slopes Sunday, and I'll work on tribabe.com upgrades on Monday. I still need to have a celebratory martini for this big purchase, I better get on my girlfriends about that.

Bill wants to book tickets to Arizona to do an Xterra triathlon in April. I'm mildly panicked since with this non-stop rain it doesn't look like we'll be able to hit the trails for mountain bike riding anytime soon. I have NO SKILLS when it comes to mountain bike riding and I don't want to take my steel Jamis out in the rain so DANG. RAIN CAN YOU PLEASE GO AWAY! I haven't even been bike commuting because the rain has been so bad.

I'll have to start riding a trainer next week if the weather is going to persist. I'm starting to wonder about the schedule we are setting for ourselves:

Jan: move into new house
Feb: road trip to Northern Idaho for wedding/skiing
Mar: Erika tribabe weekend in Southern CA
April: Xterra race in Arizona
May: Vancouver marathon

Hmmmm. No problem if I take the rest of the year off. Yeah right! I better get in shape, guess I'm running in the rain today.

I'm scaring myself!

I just bought an original piece of art on ebay last night. It's three canvases and I like most of the other work this artist does... and since we have most of the furniture we need for the new house and the house already has almost new appliances in it there isn't much to buy to move in. The thought of bare walls or hanging our triathlon race posters on the walls was killing me. So I started browsing art on ebay and ended up with this which I'm thinking will go near the staircase in the entry way.

One of our friend's is a well established artist in Corvallis: Carrie Tasman at Tasman Studios. I'm going over to her house this weekend to look at what she has available. I've had my eye on the piece below for several months but wouldn't buy since we were renting. It's still available (I can't believe it!) and I'm thinking it would be gorgeous in the dining room. AH!



I got the idea to start looking on ebay for art from our friend Lesley who collects art and is starting to do her own stuff too. I am going to talk to her about one of her pieces for the hallway near the kitchen. AH!

I'm scaring myself.

The view is about to change

View of our new backyard

We are in the final steps of purchasing our first new home. It looks like we will close by the end of the month. We had been renting a great house with a gorgeous view and I was devastated to find out (right before Xmas) that the owner wanted the house back and that we had to be out by Feb. 1st.

We spent about 1 week looking and found the perfect house right away. I feel like I'm going from wanting everything to having everything and it's going to take some time to adjust. I've always been the poor kid out who could hang out with the rich kids (or the poor kids) but never really fit in anywhere. Now I'm a woman who can buy a house, owns a car and 3 bikes, enjoys endurance sports and I've traveled from snowy mountain tops to tropical Hawaii the past three years every winter.

How did this happen? I can't play the underdog anymore. I've got to adjust my self image. I feel elated and confused. I think it's time to grow up. Wow.

Swimming class again

School is back in session (I work at a university) so that means faculty/staff swim class is back too. I've been dreading this Monday since class stopped three weeks ago. Falling out of swim shape is painful in this type of class where the coach emhapasizes every stroke.

Since learning all three strokes last year, I've had the most improvement with fly and I love swimming IMs. I have no idea how I swam free style only for so long, I must have been mentally tough. OK, I really was just scared to go to this class and that kept me away for three years! Fear is powerful. Everyday I go to this class is a step forward and my proudest moments last year were finishing a 200 fly and a 400 IM.

This term, I've got to improve back and breast stroke. I think my weakness is the kick which is disappointing consider I have man legs.

Got up early to do the core workout and it felt great to start out the day with this workout.

Stress relief: X Country skiing

Wow, bad form in this pic. Good thing I made the pink polka dot fleece skirt before we left so I at least thought I was cute. This is my first time cross country skiing on a non-groomed trail at a snow park near HooDoo. The snow was great but I think I prefer the groomed trails since you just don't get going fast in this deep stuff. Bill is disappointed by this and wants to do more back country skiing/snow shoeing so we'll have to compromise.

The photo is dark because we didn't get there until after 3pm (oops). So only 1.5 hours of skiing and then we were back in the car.

We just made an offer on our first house and things have been stressful. The house is great and things are proceeding well so far but I'm not going to celebrate until I have the loan finalized at the bank and the appraisal done.

The house has some fabulous landscaping already so I guess I will have to learn to enjoy yard work. I hope it's as much fun as skiing.

Soft core pics

Last year I suffered from a bulging disc and learned that my core muscles were too weak to handle an Ironman. By the time I crossed the finish line, my right hand was almost constantly numb and tingling and the recovery after the race took months longer than what I expected.

It's time to face the facts: I have to improve my core strength and flexibility if I'm going to keep doing triathlons. I am reading "Core Performance" by Mark Versegen and I'm planning about 16 weeks of core training. Six days a week. I'm going to track my progress on this blog to help keep myself on track and honest. Here are my stats now:
Weight: 132
Waist: 31
Hips: 35.5
Quads: 20.5 L 21 R
Calves: 13.5 L 14 R

Looking forward to seeing some changes over the next three months. It won't be easy, we are about to move into a new house this month so keeping on track will be a challege. This pic should help:

New Year's Rockin Eve

Bill doing his best male model pose. I did my typical New Year's Day couch warming while nursing a mild hangover. Fortunately, we had company coming over so I had to get up and clean the house and make some soup. We spent the Eve with our partying friends and the Day with tri friends so we got the best of both.

I showed some of the fleece bun warmers I've been making to the group and noticed a few raised eyebrows. I think Lavs wants one to train in.