So if I post another one that you can't comment on, tell me. Otherwise I'm all sad and thinking no one reads my blog anymore ...

Also, I think the search is broken. And the pic is way out of date. And I really should overhaul the whole design.

Except suddenly I'm pooped.

I haven't been having a lot. But I've been having a little, regularly.

I'm starting to feel anxiety creeping up on me.

I know the caffeine is what triggers it. But I can feel it slowly rising over the last few days.

I'm discouraged at the idea of trying to quit again. It doesn't matter that I haven't been drinking a lot. My 1 cup of coffee has been 1/3 regular, 2/3 decaf. You'd think that would be low enough. But no. I'm pretty sure I'm facing the same horrible headaches, fatigue, and depression even with that low level.

It's a lose-lose situation, and I'm in the Loser seat.

Today I'll try to stick to that one cup I had this morning, not add a can of diet coke or anything. We'll see if I survive.

This is really long 'cause I copied and pasted it from an email. Not 'cause I'm always long and rambly. Oh, wait.

PT was good, I guess, I don't know. It was a big evaluation, she had me stand this way and that, and twist and lift legs and push against resistance and stuff like that. I told her about the gait analysis, the hip pain last year, the doc, the new shoes ... She said my hips are definitely not level right now, that they're tiled / rotated ....

In the end she said:
1.) I DO have a small leg length discrepancy (she measured, hip/pelvic bone to ankle, on each side) - just under .5" -- not enough to be noticeable walking, etc, but possibly enough to cause problems in running
2.) pregnancy loosens ligaments (I knew that) and it takes a year or two to recover. Successive pregnancies can make things more out of wonk. After hearing that I have 7 children and the youngest is 17 months she said that my ligaments are probably "shot" and that I'll need to do muscle strengthening to help the muscles support what the ligaments are not doing.

She gave me a lift for my left shoe and encouraged me to wear it as much as possible unless it makes things worse (which might happen because my body compensated long ago for the discrepancy) ...

She said we'll give it a day or two with the lift, and then talk about running but we don't want to try too many new things at once. She said if I'm improved by Wednesday I'll try to run a little (1 mile (or less if it hurts)) and then see how I feel in the 2 hour window afterward. If I'm lurching / hurting worse then I run only half as far the next time. If I'm okay, then I can incrementally creep up the distance. Too early to know if I can run in the Dow run, she said it's probably cutting it close but who knows, I might see a huge improvement with the lift.

I have to go 3x/week for 4 weeks (which takes me right up until the race) ...

Soooo. I don't know, I guess that's good that 1.) she thought there were two clear problems and 2.) she thinks the lift and strengthening / stretching / exercises will help. But I guess I'm frustrated that we still don't really KNOW if it'll help. I came home thinking I should've just quit and given up before starting down this road, but that's kind of silly.

She said I could bring in my shoes and the class gait analysis / shoe recommendation sheet and she'll try to see if my new shoes fit the bill, and she said we could talk to the PT who did the analysis, and she wrote on her list to do another one.

So now I'm a dork with a special thing in my shoe ....

She didn't really confirm or say it wasn't what Dr. B said (tight adductor muscles), so ... :shrug

She does think that strengthening my core / doing Pilates might help in the long run. Although she said not to jump in and take a class and do all the hard moves right away, that I'd need to ease into it. And that she'd incorporate some pilates into the exercises we do.

And she said that even though running can be hard on the joints, the other health benefits outweigh the damage running does, and that it's worth pursuing continuing to run.

Maybe I should learn the Chi Running technique (forgot to ask her about that, if she knew of it, whether I could try to learn it while recovering) so that I do less joint damage in the long run. The chi running is supposed to put your body into alignment and work with gravity to run fluidly and easy on the joints -- to prevent injury.

I've been meaning to ask the Chi Running guy about learning while recovering.

One of the leaders at the Race Prep class said she took the Chi Running course last year and it's taken her a year to really *get it* physically -- it's apparently easy to *understand* but not so easy to retrain your body in how it moves.

Huh.

So.

Anyway.

Both Buzz and Sputnik asked for robot cakes for their birthdays. I made each the same general way, using a 9x13 cake pan cut into pieces and then covered with homemade fondant and frosted. I have a recipe that *tastes* very good for the fondant - but I'm still working on getting the consistency right. It's a learning process.

Anyway, here's Buzz's cake from the other day:

And Sputnik's from way back in March:

Both were somewhat dictated by the child's description and/or drawings.

In (non) running news. I took almost 2 weeks off to rest my hip. I went to see the doc on Tuesday. He told me what I wanted to hear - he thought it was a strained tendon, probably due to weak muscles (he thought the hip adductors, although the hip adductor 'tests' did not produce pain) ... he gave me some pages of stretches for the hip adductors, and said I could keep training for the 10K. I was both hopeful and skeptical.

On Wednesday I took a "short, easy" 2 mile test run. I could tell the hip felt off at times, and sometimes hurt, but sometimes didn't seem to too much ... but as the day wore on, it got worse. I ended up lurching around so much that the leaders of the race prep class I'm taking sent me home, telling me I shouldn't be briskly walking on it. All the instructors (many of them nurses) that I talked to at the class encouraged me to call the doc back and push for physical therapy, to get a 'full workup' ... they seemed to think there was still hope for me running a 10K in June, if I was proactive with treatment.

So ... we'll see. For now I will stay off the hip - again - until I talk to the doc. Who isn't in (at our location) on Thursday, so it'll have to wait until Friday.

in related news, all my boys need haircuts.

sooooo ... I did make an appointment with my doc, next week. we'll see where that leads.

I'm discouraged about that. Today was a beautiful, cool day and I wanted to be out running. and my 10K is coming up. will I have time to heal and train for it?

I'm hoping there's some magic quick fix.

In the other hip, oddly enough. The PT who did the gait analysis in my running class said she thought I was in good alignment but might have one leg slightly longer than the other. Go figure. But that doesn't explain the hip pain if the hip pain hops from side to side, does it.

After consulting the good Dr. Google, I am thinking it might be iliopsoas tendonitis.

Trying to decide what next. Do I start the string of doctor visits that may or may not end up in a diagnosis and treatment? Do I visit a chiropractor? Do I maybe pursue online consulting from www.egoscue.com? Do I take a Chi Running course? Do I just try to back off the plan and work on the alignment and stretching exercises?

Blah blah, I have to admit it's discouraging, when things were going so well, to be lurching around like Frankenstein today. Dr. Google suggests that, if it IS iliopsoas tendonitis, it might take weeks or months to really heal. And who knows, maybe that's not even what it is.

My race is a little over a month away. Will I be able to run it?

It's hard to *become* a runner when you're doing your best to do what it takes and something like this comes up. Makes me wonder if maybe I wasn't cut out to become a runner after all. Those kids back in 8th grade who told me I was a total athletic 100zR and should just quit track ... maybe they were right.

I've been running more. Using the Nike+ website 'coach' to train for a 10K in June. I won't be *fast* but I will finish. I just ordered new running shoes from Zappos.com and they should arrive today. I hope I hope I hope I love them.

I've been muddling through laundry, dishes, school, supervising kid chores .... those things are endless.

I've been waffling and failing on healthy eating. As usual, it's the junk food that really undermines me, not so much the meal tweaking.

My creative energies have mostly gone into birthday cakes and cooking. which I haven't blogged, but still take pictures of as if I'm going to blog them.

I've continued in my tradition of not being well scheduled with a baby, probably even less so now that we've wandered away from the "whole family peace & quiet" time in which babies always napped. So now I have a busy toddler who doesn't really sleep regularly. It's taking it's toll on me, but I'm too tired to deal with it. She does sleep, it just tends to be when she decides to, rather than when would be good for the rest of us. Blah blah blah.

Oh, and several of you have asked about the robots. Yes, there was plenty of food. Hungry high school kids can be surprisingly picky, but overall there were good reports that they enjoyed the meals. I provided three meals over the season. The team did very well, making it to the quarter finals in both the State and later the World competition. Both times they were eliminated by the team that went on to win, so we can't really complain about that. The kids and the robot did great, and we were pretty impressed with the whole FIRST Robotics experience.

The kids who are in the community honors choir had their final performance last night and all sang well. I completely forgot to bring my camera. And Eminoodle has been cast in another play, so I'm juggling rehearsals and costume help for that. Hopefully I'll update on that when it comes up, but don't count on it, given my recent blogging record.

Actually, I'd like to get back to blogging regularly. But I won't promise. I did (gulp) join facebook with my real name, so if you know me and want to look me up, you can. Don't expect much from me there, either, though. I do still hate facebook. LOL.

I wish I had more interesting things to say, or deeper stuff. Truth is, I'm kind of plodding along feeling pretty good about a few things and like I'm trying not to *sink* in the rest of the stuff. But if you someday read a headline "Local woman and part time runner drowns in pile of laundry" you'll know it's me.

They get their challenge and kit just after New Years and have something like 44 days to build their robot for competition. So during this "build phase" they're open every day after school and on weekends. The kids come when they can. So parents provide the meals.

This is my first time bringing a meal. 25-35 students and mentors. Mostly high school boys (who might eat a lot) but then again many skinny nerd boys ;-) (maybe they won't eat that much) ... are they picky eaters? Will bringing veggies be a waste? I'm told there was a plate of cut up fresh veggies that didn't get eaten, and it keeps returning, day after day, looking sadder and sadder.

I decided to bring a chili buffet. Three big crock pots of chili. Well, four, if you count the smaller one to feed my family, who happen to also need to eat tonight.

One Buffalo Chicken Chili (think hot wings flavor), one traditional ground beef & beans, and one white chicken chili. I've got three huge "family sized" bags of fritos, and all the extras to go with chili ... I've got a heap of two liters to drink, and I'm bringing about 7 dozen big homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know if it'll be too much or not enough. I don't know if I should've had a heat-and-serve pan of cheesy veggies and one of mac & cheese. I'm told there's always peanut butter and bread for the desperate. Everyone I've asked has said, "Hey, if you're bringing free food, and people don't like it, tough."

But, still. I'm a little nervous about feeding so many robots.

I want to be on their good side if they ever take over the world.

Let's see ... around thanksgiving seven learned to stand unsupported
we wondered if she would walk by her first birthday
she didn't.
but she did the next day
and has been charging around ever since.

we had a great week before christmas with my sister & her family

and a great week and a half after christmas with auntie L. and her doggie

and then we crashed and tumbled back into "real life" and are still swimming upstream ...

I have started doing run/walk intervals again (finally!) to ease back into running in time for local races this spring. so far, so good. I'm not pushing it, I'm up to 8 minute jogging intervals (about week 6 of C25K) but I can feel the aches and stiffness of having not run in months, so I am trying to take it easy.

I'm hoping to get all the way on track with eating and back to walking / stationary bike intervals on my off-running days in order to lose the lotta behind that I gained back in these no running, bad eating months. boy was it easy to *undo* that hard work.

and I'm back to trying to get off caffeine once more. yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a dork.

so ... that's what's up here.

So right when I got it done I took pictures so you could see it. Assuming you were all dying to see it, of course. I hope you weren't literally dying, since it was weeks ago now.

but here it is.

I'm not sure it still looks that way. I can never make my hair do what salon people do. But if anything I think I like it my way better. Although there are no pictures of that, and maybe it only looks different to me.

It's almost like ... I've neglected my blog design!

Oh, right, I remember. I was going to revamp the whole thing.

Until I remembered how much WORK that would be.

What if I just re-do the picture and ... hm. I could PAY someone for a nicer design. One that's less cumbersome to edit and more stylish. I could muddle through something myself, with my latent artsy fartsy abilities, but they're pretty rusty and when I go into creative mode I tend to forget everything else in my life. Which doesn't really work so well when there's laundry, meals, dishes, school, and children already on my plate. But it's hard to decide to pay someone for something you know you could do, if given the time and attention. Not that it's about the money, it's more about the CAN do thing.

But wow, is that picture out of date.

I should make a new picture, at the least.

Look for that in the next ... um ... few years.

yeah.

In the meantime, here's the baby, in the leaves, from a few weeks ago. 'Cause I'm a little behind.

oh, ha ha ha, funny story. At least, funny in the sense of "What a dork I am!" -- Just now, after posting this, I went to edit the picture and I found the Christmas picture I was working on two years ago. No, 2006 was THREE years ago. That I never sent out. All of you who didn't get our Christmas Card two years ago, or three years ago, and thought you were rudely omitted from our list? No, I just didn't send any out. And same thing last year, except for the part where I even tried to work on the picture. Maybe I should start working on Christmas '10 right now?

What? Microwave cake in a cup? No way. I was skeptical.

She posted the recipe.

No leavening. 3 minutes.

How could it not be a gluey gooey glop that, at best, doesn't boil over and make a mess?

Val suggested maybe I did not trust her enough.

But ... would you? Microwave cake? Yeah, whatEVAH.

I decided I had to try it.

I could have used a huge mug, but she claimed it would work in a regular mug, so I used my very own personal every morning coffee mug.

Here we are, ready to go:

Ingredients mixed. A big old cup o' batter.

I was not the only one interested in the experiment:

Well, I'll be. It's rising up out of the mug, straight and tall, not pouring over into a goopy mess down the side:

It fell a bit upon removal. I wonder if it needed to cook a little longer?

It did not turn out easily. I used a knife to loosen along the sides. At this point I was still pretty skeptical. Maybe it was the holes where the chocolate chips melted, but it looked kind of goopy and unevenly cooked. I thought my skepticism had been justified.

I cut it lengthwise in half, then each half into thirds, to give everyone a taste test. I ate the clump that remained stuck to the side of the mug.

Much to my surprise, it was pretty good. Even for me, a not-really-a-cake-fan person. In fact, I kind of preferred the less crumbly texture. And melted chocolate chips are good in anything. The kids were the real test.

They proclaimed it a success.

So ... go figure.

I guess Val is trustworthy after all! :)

Here's the recipe:

Val's Mug Cake

1 coffee mug
1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. sugar
2 tbls. cocoa
1 egg
3 tbls. milk
3 tbls. oil
3 tbls. chocolate chips (optional)
small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the choc. chips and vanilla and mix again. (Actually, I mixed the vanilla in with the (rice) milk and oil and egg, all the liquids at once.)

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 min. at 1000 watts (Val does 2:30 in a high wattage oven--don't remember the wattage--1800 maybe?) The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed. (actually, Val uses a large mug, so she has never had this issue - but you see I did and it turned out okay!)

Allow to cool a little and tip out onto a plate if desired.

This can serve 2. Or seven skeptics.

My hip has been feeling nearly better.

I've been wanting to give it another careful try.

Today when The Grand Lunar left for work he looked at the 50 degree drizzle and said, "It's a great day. Not." -- and I said, "It looks like a great day for running." He looked at me like I was crazy. And maybe I am. But the crisp, damp air and the autumn colors called to me.

So today I went out for a test run-walk. I did random intervals. Took it back to a walk when my hip or gait felt too off.

The good news is that I did a mile around the block. I wanted to do more. I wanted to do fewer intervals, and I wanted to go farther. To just keep running and thinking until I was too tired to do any more. But I did my best to make myself slow down, take walking intervals, and stop at once around.

I was surprised that I wanted to push myself. I've never been a push-myself kind of person. Surprised at how strongly the desire to keep running was within me. Surprised that a "not-yet-runner" could be so excited about running again.

But now that I'm home the little niggling ache I felt while running, the little slightly-off gait I sensed, is translating into the same pain and limp as before. And I'm discouraged. I'm trying to think what to do. I have this book and haven't really put my all into the alignment. I should do that. I believe the book too much to think special shoes are the answer. I don't want to accommodate my dysfunction, I want to align it so it's no longer dysfunctional. Strengthen the right muscles. The book promises it can work that way.

But what else beyond that?

I could visit my doctor. Maybe get referred to someone who does sports injury stuff. But ... that doesn't really feel like the right route to go. Endless trips to different doctors who are all not really sure. I could go to a chiropractor. We know a nice one. I drove behind his car yesterday. But, again, that's endless visits and I'm not sure it's what I need. I don't know. I'm pondering surfing for running coaches. Someone who could look at what I'm doing and suggest what's good and bad about it. Although I am guessing, still, it's the underlying alignment and muscles having grown content to do the wrong thing that's the issue behind any motion errors I'm making.

Here are some things I decided while trying to run today:

1.) I really want to run
2.) I want to use my running time to think / pray / meditate on things of God and Faith. To use that time to draw near to Him.
3.) I want to use my running time as a positive example to my family, to be active in my life and pro-active about my health
4.) to let that pro-activity about my health encourage me back on the healthy eating thing

I don't really think I need to be *fast* and I don't expect it ever to be *easy* but I want it to be *fluid* and to feel *natural* to run. Not awkward. But I'm not sure how to get my short, stocky self to that place: fluid and natural.

If running isn't what God has for me, then I pray He directs me to something else that I can enjoy and be content with. I know I could be a walker, just fine, but ... it turns out, after a taste of running ... I really want to run.

So now I just need to figure out how to get back to being able to.