Learning New Things About Me

My last two weeks at my daughter’s was nice.  I enjoyed the city.  I enjoyed being with my daughter and Baby.  And I Iearned a few things about me in those two weeks.

1. I need routine and structure.  This was surprising thing to realize as I travel so much and there is no routine and structure when you’re living out of a suitcase.  I tried to make a routine but Baby had her own ideas about that.  I cooked supper every night thinking that would establish a structure, but my son in law gets home at different times each night so there was not a certain time to have it all ready.
2. Daytime TV is really bad.  Bad like how does anyone watch this shit?  Reruns of 80’s and 90’s sitcoms.  Springer type shows.  Those really stupid court shows.  I don’t watch TV that much  as it is, just morning news, but if all I had to do during the day was watch daytime TV, I’d gouge my eyes out.
3. I need my own space, whether it is private or not.  For the working hours, my laptop was on the kitchen table.  I had to shut it down and get all my files organized and back into my briefcase at the end of the work day, which was whenever I decided to shut down. I need a place that is mine. 
4. I can’t run worth a shit in an area where there is nothing but hills.  Up and down, down and up and no level stretch to catch my breath.
5. That new formula Dry Idea deodorant is damn good.
6. I need trees.  I discovered I can’t live without them.  When my husband and I were looking for our perfect house, we made a list of everything we “had” to have and a list of what we “wanted” to have. Trees were a must have.  Back then I wanted trees because I like them, they look nice in a yard and provide shade.  After living in a planned development – one where some farmer decided to cut some roads through his bean field and sell it to an ambitious developer – I can’t live without trees.  There are no trees in my daughter’s neighborhood.  The houses seem naked and exposed to heat of the sun.  You can’t escape the sun.  The rising sun through the kitchen window made it hot in the mornings.  In the evenings, the setting sun hit the bedroom windows and made it almost unbearable. 

I love our trees except when it is storming.  We have an abundance of very tall, 100+ year old oak trees in our yard.  We have tall, towering soft wood trees and several pecan trees.  Most of our house is shaded throughout the day.  I love it.  I realized I can’t live without trees.

Dorothy was right….there is no place like home

Cooped Up

I am midway through my second week of staying with my daughter and the new baby.  Of course the baby is the most beautiful baby ever born in the entire history of the world.  If she had been born decades ago, she would be the Gerber baby, but since that opportunity was long ago, she’ll just have to be content knowing she could have beat that baby out of the baby food jars.

Baby likes to stay awake at night, which is the reason for my extented stay.  I get up with her at night and let poor recovering mommy and early work person daddy get some sleep.

I’m not used to being confined in the house.  It is making a bit stir crazy. I can get out if I want to, but there is so much to do here.  I have become the housekeeper.  I do the laundry, prepare all the meals and keep the baby occupied while mommy naps.  In addition to my housekeeper duties, I am working from the kitchen table and getting just a little bit of sleep at night. 

I have had one “treat” and that is my visits to the personal painer trainer.  His name is Josh and he is a nice young man.  Well, at first he is a nice young man.  About 30 minutes into our 60 minute workout, he and I are no longer friends.  I spend a lot of time cussing him the next day too.  I have one more appointment with him before I go home to land of nothing.  I will miss him.

Besides feeling cooped up, I have big city envy.  There are some that would argue the point regarding the Nashville area actually qualifying for “big city” status, but when you live in Hooterville, Nashville is a sprawling metropolis of great wonder and lots of stores to buy stuff.  And places with personal trainers.

In Hooterville there are no personal trainers, no sit-down restaurants with a wine list, hell, you can’t even buy a beer.  I live in a “dry” county.  We have two little grocery stores – the larger one has a total of TEN aisles.  We have a small Walmart SuperCenter and that about sizes up our retail offerings.  Oh, there are the little local businesses – flower shop, hardware store, banks, funeral home, and a scrap booking store, but that’s it. 

Then I think about being at home, where it is peaceful and the houses are not built 3 feet from each other.  Our house is in the middle of one acre with huge 100+ year old trees shading our entire yard.  Ahh…OK, so maybe Hooterville has its advantages.  But still, I hate driving 45 minutes for a printer cartridge.

The Wait is Over!

The baby is here!  It took a long time – 16 hours of labor – but she is here!

I am staying with my daughter for a bit and it is quite different.  The baby was home for the first night last night and woke up many many times for something to eat. 

Everyone is healthy and fine, and I am much less nervous.

Hot Chills, Chi and Farm Equipment

First, a waiting to hurry update:

Daughter is seeing OB twice weekly. No pains yet, she is working 4 hours per day (on her feet) and doing a mile on the treadmill everyday. We are still waiting for the call. In the meantime….

The weather here in the Mississippi Delta is typical August unbearable. The heat index has risen every day and was at 113 on Saturday. If you’ve read previous posts, you know I am afraid of the heat. This is a recent development – I’ve only had this fear for a year. I know exactly when I became aware of the heat and it is directly related to the horrible anniversary that just passed.

Before THE THING that happened last year, I loved to run in the heat. I was the person that waited until 2 or 3 in the afternoon on those hot, dog days of August to go for a 3 mile run. I was fussed at by people who saw me – it was to hot, they said. Don’t run in the heat of the day. But I just loved it. I loved to sweat and pant and just run.

Hot Chills

There was a point my body would reach in those long hot runs, I called it the hot chills. It would usually happen mid way through my 30 minute run. I would be sweating profusely and then suddenly, my skin would get cold and I would get chill bumps. Hot chills. I thought this was the ultimate goal in hot, humid run. Run to the hot chills! However, it doesn’t take many clicks through WebMD.com to get the facts on hot chills:

• Heat exhaustion: Profuse sweating, fatigue, headache, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, chills, weakness, excessive thirst, muscle aches and cramps, vision problems, flushing, agitation or irritability, and sometimes unconsciousness.

The good news is that the deadly Heat Stroke symptoms are just the opposite of hot chills:

• Heat stroke: High body temperature (often it’s 104°F-105°F or higher) and rising, nausea and vomiting; seizures; disorientation or delirium; hot, dry skin; unconsciousness; coma; shortness of breath; decreased urination; or blood in urine or stool.

During hot chills, my skin is cool to the touch. So I think I’m OK, at least writing it all here makes me feel a wee bit better.

Chi

I read about this in Women’s Health and did a little research. I am not a yoga/fitness guru, I am just an old woman trying to stay fit and healthy and not end up in a wheelchair when I am old. So my words here are in layman’s terms. I hope I do not insult any yogi’s out there that may be reading this.

Chi is a form of running. There are excellent explanations as to why it works on YouTube. The easy description is to stand in perfect posture (for me that is Mountain Pose in yoga). You know how that feels. When you start running, get your body in perfect posture and then lean forward from your ankles. Don’t bow your back! Keep the spine straight. I tried it. I was astonished!

Running was easier, smoother. Not as much pounding on my back. And I can’t believe how much faster. I am trying to run in this posture all the time now. It is almost like starting over, I have to build up to it, but so far I have shaved one minute off my 1 mile time and that is while I’m struggling with it.

Chi running seems to use different muscles in my legs and butt so I’m getting a good workout. I focus on my posture and staying relaxed and I lean into my run. I love it! I’ll let you know when I make it 3 miles without walking intervals. I will say that walking in the Chi posture is very fast, it is much harder than running in the posture. As you lean forward, you need your legs to move quickly and that happens in running. It takes more effort when you are walking. Yesterday morning I walked 2 miles in 28 minutes. It is fast.

Farm Equipment

This morning my run was screwed up by farm equipment.

There are factors that affect my run in the mornings: weather, traffic, work schedule and hypochondria.

This morning the big factor, weather, was perfect. It stormed all day yesterday so today it was in the 70’s with very low humidity, A light northern breeze was blowing and no clouds in the sky. Work schedule was clear for the morning, so no rush to a 7 am conference call. Hypochondria was in check, however, the burritos we had for dinner last night were talking to me. School has started back which means more traffic in the morning, so while traffic was not perfect, it was OK.

Please do not get confused about “traffic” in my neck of the woods. I’m not talking NYC traffic jams or Atlanta interstates during rush hour. Around here a traffic jam is a tractor doing 15 mph through town. We live on a 2 lane highway one mile from “town”. The shoulder is a few feet wide and it is a designated bike route. I run east into the sunrise in the morning, so I am careful to run on the opposite shoulder so that the east bound speeders that are blinded by the glare of the sun do not run over me.

This morning I made it to town and was on my way back, on the side of the road with the west bound traffic when I saw them coming: Six row cotton pickers, wider than both lanes of the highway. The pickers were half off the road to stay out of the oncoming lane of traffic. I was on the opposite shoulder, so that was not a problem for me. However. The impatient asshole drivers behind the pickers were risking life and limb to pass the pickers. This meant squinting through the glare of the sun while hanging onto their cellphones with one hand and their coffee in the other to pass the oversized pickers. Most idiot drivers were coming over onto the shoulder of the road where I was running. Shit!

So my run was cut a half mile short as I had to walk through yards to stay off the shoulder where impatient drivers were passing farm equipment doing 15 mph in a 45 mph zone.

Even with last night’s burritos, farm equipment and walking the last half mile, my time was 32:42. I’m liking this Chi stuff.

Wait to Hurry

We survived The Anniversary although I’m not sure how.  Let’s just say I am glad last week is over and let’s move on.

In moving on, I am now sitting on pins and needles impatiently waiting for THE CALL.  THE CALL will come from my daughter.  She is 28 years old, lives 3 hours away and will go into labor with her first child at any time.  My instructions are to stay here and wait until she calls to tell me they are on their way to the hospital.  It will take me 2.5 hours driving like a bat out of hell  to get to the hospital.  That is assuming that I will leave the moment she calls.

It’s not that easy.  I have shit to pack and get loaded in the car because I will be staying for possibly 2 weeks after the baby is born. 

I have the big pink suitcase packed with clothes, however, I still have things that must go into the suitcase before I leave.  I hate living out of a suitcase as I normally do as my job involves heavy travel.  I thought about putting all my makeup and personal items I use every day in the suitcase, but then I’d have to take it all out to use it and put it back in and I don’t like all that unnecessary work.  My stuff is all in one place in the bathroom, so here’s hoping I remember to grab all of it and put it in the suitcase. 

I also have to pack up and take my work stuff. Every evening when it is time to leave my office, I gather all the files I am working on and put them in a nice pile.  I put the laptop on stand by and my rolling briefcase is right beside my desk.  I could get it all packed up and downstairs in just 10 minutes.

There are gifts for the new baby, and those are safely in the car.  I have a bag packed with essentials for a long waiting room stay on the table, ready for me to snatch and run.  I have a couple of sacks of edible items to take with me and those are waiting by the back door.  If the car gets down to a half tank, I fill it up. 

So let’s say it will take me a total of 45 minutes from the time I get THE CALL to the time I am squealing tires pulling out of my driveway.  She is now about 3 hours and 15 minutes into labor.

We can assume the 45 minute get-out-the-door time if THE CALL comes during the day when I am dressed and ready to go somewhere.  See, most days when I work from home, I wear crappy old shorts and holey Tshirts and no makeup.  Depending on how lazy I am in the mornings, I may not wash my hair for days.  If I were sitting around all gross like that, I’d need some extra minutes to look presentable so that I will not be mistaken for a homeless beggar at the hospital. 

And then what if she calls in the middle of the night – again, more time added to getting out the door. 

I wish I could spread it out a little.  I’m sitting here ready to go and nothing to do whilst I wait.  But when THE CALL comes, I’ll be rushing around frantically trying to get there. 

I am waiting to hurry. 

 

 

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