(no subject)

Yesterday Dick, the Kid and I all spent the day in Halifax watching buskers. It was wonderful. The buskers were good, the weather was excellent, the mood was great. It was the way things are supposed to be.

Today I should be sailing but I've taken the day off to hang out with The Kid. Unfortunately, The Kid had the opportunity to go over to a friends house so now I'm spending a Saturday on dry land with nothing to do. Oh well. :) Next week is race week and I'll have lots of sailing to do.

The Kid has been having a tough time lately. Dick's uncle has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and isn't expected to last long. While we're not really super close to his uncle, he doesn't live far away and we see him every once in a while. The Kid's taking it really really hard though. Not so much he's dying, but more about coming to grips with the mortality everybody else (and everything else for that matter) She's been constantly worrying about Lucy. She can't sleep at night because she's afraid she's going to die while she's asleep. She was chewing her nails the other day and swallowed a bit of nail and fretted for hours that it would kill her. God love her. My sailing is frightening her. A couple of weeks ago we were all going to go out for a race but the winds were heavier than I would have liked for her to be out in so I suggested they stay home. This, of course, frightened the heck out of her - the question of my safety, that is.

Anyway. We'll get through it. One step at a time. A lot of patience and talking and snuggling. Apparently she's feeling much better about it today... (She says, sitting alone in the computer room on a great Saturday while everybody else is out RACING!)

I'm still walking/running and just about finished week 5. Since fatty666 has gone to North Carolina I have nobody to talk to when I go so I bought myself an MP3 Walkman. I LOVE it. I HATE the software that Sony provides with it. Apparently the Terry Fox 10K is about the same time I *should* be at the 10k stage of the program. Yanno, one sponser from out there in the great unknown might be enough to make me do it....

Ok, I hear the washing machine has stopped - time to go grab my $30 worth of Value Village finds (God I love Value Village) and throw 'em on the line.

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

Guess which Yacht Club has a web cam now!!

(no subject)

Three posts in one day? What *am* I doing?

Just came back from a run/walk. I normally go in the evening. I was going to go this evening, but Dick decided to stay out for the evening with friends (Which is totally cool, he never does that. Yay for him getting a life!) I could have gone earlier when The Kid was at her friend's house, but I prefer the evening and I assumed Dick was going to be home. But he wasn't, and the Kid didn't want to go (I don't blame her) and I'm trying to be very aware of shuffling her off to some babysitter or another at the drop of a hat and while she's getting better at staying alone, she's not there yet... so I said I would run around the house a bunch of times. Ok, I live in a bungalow in suburbia. I was supposed to walk/run for 46 minutes. That just was not exciting.

Then I had an idea!

A couple of miles down the road is a football field surrounding by an oval track. I packed her up with a blankie, a camp chair and a book (Yes, she's 8, but she's not feeling well and I'm pampering her - humour me I'm an overprotective spoiling type mother), took Lucy - who drives me NUTS if she thinks she's going to go for a walk and it doesn't materialize, and headed for the oval. I stuck her where she could see me over to one side with the chair, blankie and book and did laps! Now, if that's not somebody with drive to finish this goddamned program, I don't know what is.

Having said that, I only did 8 reps instead of 9, cut it 4 minutes short and skimped on the 5 minute cool down, but it was getting dark and it's right next to a skateboard park where there were a lot of kids I wouldn't want to meet in the dark, and nobody knew where I was if I *did* meet somebody in the dark. I'm not chicken, but I'm not stupid either.

My legs are KILLING me. My ass is telling me that, in future, I should remember that its primary job is for SITTING, not for running. The track had some sort of spongey stuff on it that, I assume, was supposed to make it better for running. I found it sort of like trying to run on sand. My legs pushed in and went squoooooodge instead of getting a nice firm surface that pushed back. I thought it would be much easier, being flat and all, but it was considerably harder. Having said that, I suspect if I ran their for any length of time I'd have a fantastic looking backside!

There was a guy there when I got there running laps. He did about 2 to my 1. Jerk. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do it without stopping let alone doing it at a fairly reasonable pace.

Oh well. Faith in the program and determination not to quit. If that doesn't count for something I don't know what would.

Speaking of determination I discovered something today.

I'm really frickin strong/brave.

It just kinda hit me out of the blue. There was a story on the radio about a guy who'd lost his sight and had had a couple of surgery's to replace his corneas. He'd get it done, he'd see for a while, it'd get infected or something and he wouldn't see anymore, and then he'd get another one. The program, though I only caught bits and pieces of it, talked about him being brave and such. Then it asked something along the lines how *you* react when faced with a challenge.

Yanno, I can't think of a time when I HAVEN'T done something because I was afraid to do it. I don't think I've ever cut myself slack because I was afraid. God knows I've been afraid A LOT. But you know what else? It kinda dawned on me that I don't think I'm afraid anymore. It's like somewhere along the line of pushing myself to do stuff despite the fact that I was afraid - maybe even doing it BECAUSE I was afraid (going to university, sailing, making left hand turns), I stopped being afraid. Oddly enough, however, the realization never actually surfaced until now. My body has still been in "I'm afraid to do it" mode, but I'm not afraid. I think it's safe to turn the "afraid" mode off now.

Don't ask me what I am/was afraid of, because I'm not rightly sure. But I think it's gone.

And don't ask me how a running post became all philosophical, because I don't rightly know. But it's the last one for the day, I promise.