Footy is back!

Since 1 or 2 people said to me that they thought this was a depressive and sad blog, I have been trying to not whinge on here as much, but I am sorry - I am really fucking sick of being in pain, really sick of it. I saw the physio yesterday and it is so frustrating to be in more pain the day after then when I walked in. I know it is for the best in the long term and that after a few day's it will feel better, but it really doesn't make today much easier. I am in pain and I am sick of it!!

In other news, today my Dad and Co had a garage sale and I helped out a bit up there and also went to watch one of my brothers play a practice footy match. The highlight of the footy was seeing my 3 yr old niece being there in her Collingwood FC jersey kicking her pink footy around... or at least trying to kick it hehehe. As you can see, it is very cute






Oh and tonight I did my bit for Earth Hour and turned off everything except the fridge, tv and pvr, see - in this photo, taken with my phone camera, you can see 12 candles going and I have 15 going in total. I really want a compact camera that has bluetooth cos I am too lazy sometimes to get the cable out for my compact camera, so I apologise for the shitty photo

A week in review

Today I caught up with my Aunty and Uncle from outback NSW and it was great to see their familiar faces. I love them so much, it really is a shame that they live so far away!

Today I also realised how good it is to have friends that I talk to that know what it means I do when I say my job title. When I say things like SOX compliance etc, it is just nice to know that they know what I am on about, not that it is a big deal when people don't, it is just nice when they do!

Today I was told that my landlords will give me another 12 months lease, but will also be increasing my rent by $20 a week... -gasp- it might be time to find a housemate!

Work is going well and everything else is well. I am focussing on me and what I want to be doing and been doing a bit of cooking at home and everything is grand :D

The track state masters titles are on this weekend and details can be found here and here

My Dad is having a garage sale on Saturday, so I am heading over there Friday to see what I can get -cough- I mean see what I can help with! ;)

TSSS

OK - to all you trackies out there in Melbourne - The final weekend of the TSSS is happening on Sunday April 6th @ 12pm!! I should be there as a spectator and if you are a track rider you should be there riding!!! More info here

Just what I needed

I have had a great Easter weekend! I left Melbourne on Good Friday morning and came back this arvo and it was oh so nice! Lots of things to keep me busy and good people, good food and really enjoyable with no computers or internet!!

I really don't want to go to work tomorrow, another day off would be grand!

Yeah!

The footy is back for another year :D :D :D

GO PIES!!!

I hope to go to a few AFL matches this year although now that both my brothers are playing in a local league I will be going to see them play on a Saturday arvo's as a priority - I love local footy!

Shiny and new!

Tonight I collected a shiny new Kurt Kinetics Road Machine fluid trainer with the additional power computer! POWAAAARRRR ;)
After speaking to a few people, the general opinion was that the Road Machine is better than the cyclops fluid2 trainer, so I went with it instead as they are a similar price point (sans power computer).

It is currently sitting on my lounge room floor, just looking at me waiting to be used, but that wont happen until at Monday or Tuesday.

Big thanks to Carl for his assistance and also for his review

I needed to give myself a few weeks of just not trying to get on the bike at all, a chance to build some strength and to not stress about not being on the bike and I mentally feel a lot better for doing that.

Next week I will try to get back on the bike, starting with 5 minutes of light pedaling and I am _really_ looking forward to it, so much so I really can't put it into words :D

It begins.

A little late

I finally got my racing licence in the snail mail today - I paid for it last December and called them about it a week or two ago and now I finally have it! Pitty I can't even ride a bike at the moment heh.

Soon.

:D

It is sad to admit

Something people may not realise, despite this blog, I really don't like talking about myself - seriously.

To add to this, my sister, my closest family member, doesn't even ask me how my back injury is going because at the end of the day she really just doesn't care. My dad's wife asked me how my back was, but my sister -no. In fact never, she wouldn't have any idea at all about my back injury.

Pilates is working

On Friday I had my pilates review and it went reasonably well. Using the ultrasound machine, we can see that I can now hold my TA muscles contracted for 3 to 4 breathes instead of the 1 I could only just manage at the start, which, as Carl pointed out today, is a 300% improvement! hehehe
At least I know that things are on the improve and we can see and quantify that they are! I knew that they were as I can feel it and also I can walk at a faster pace w/out it hurting my back, still it is good to get a firm confirmation that things are improving. The goal is to get to 10 breathes with being able to hold my TA muscles contracted.
I now have a couple of extra exercises added to my pilates program to assist with my posture and upper back muscles and today I have sore'ish shoulder muscles because of them but that should go away after a few sessions.

I hope to be on the bike on the trainer soon.

Animal emergency is a really sad show and makes me want a puppy dog or wish I wasn't allergic to cats. I miss my puppy dog.

HHCCC 2008 Photo's

OK I have _finally_ organised the photo's I took the weekend of the HHCCC and they are here.

The blurry, out of focus ones would be because I was trying to take the photo while driving past the cyclist, most often at 10k/ph so a very slow driving speed, but not slow enough for my camera but it also shows I was concentrating on driving and just pointing and clicking - not actually looking heh

Frustrated

Because I wear orthotics, it mean's that the back of my foot sits higher in shoes, because of this my heal ends up rubbing against the back of my sneakers in the 'wrong' spot for the shape of the shoe which results in the material being warn away and creating little balls of material on the inside of the shoe which eventually gives way to the plastic 'frame/moulding' of the shoe. With my current expensive whizz bang sneakers, I am now getting blisters on the back of each foot from this happening. I keep cutting the balled up bits of material away but I don't know if that's helping or hindering - either way I have to not wear my sneakers for a few days which means that I can't go for my walks unless I dig out my old sneakers and where them for a few days instead.

I know that this happens with my orthotics, but I have never had this problem of blisters before because of it. I am wondering if I go back to the shoe shop to see if they can suggest something to try and fix the situation - can you get heal inserts for the back of your foot?

A bit of fun

A friend pointed me in the direction of this and I just couldn't resist

It may not be showing the full screen when viewed through my blog so here is the direct link

Too easy

Today I bought a new mattress and my first ever bedroom suite and I spent far far too much money, but I am happy with what I have bought. I spent enough to maybe mean that I may no longer be salary sacrificing a new laptop this year, but that's ok :) I also discovered how easy it is to increase my credit limit on my interest free card thingy to almost 4 times what it was at
(why use saving's if I don't need to), it is kinda scary actually and makes me realise how easy it is for people to get themselves into financial trouble with these interest free deals. Actually, while increasing the limit over the phone, the guy asked what my after tax income was each week and he felt the need to confirm I gave him the right information - well yeah, just cos I am female and I sound young on the phone doesn't mean I don't have an ok job!

It is going to take 3-5 weeks for it to be ready and along with delivery I am also paying them to set it all up for me, because for $25 it is worth it seeing as they will also take away the packaging! So in the package I got matching 2x side dressers with 3 draws and a wide 6 draw tall boy, all matching and will all be stained in the same colour and have matching handles. The bed is also kinda funky, it has a fully enclosed base, but it has a gas lift so that you can lift the mattress and slat base to then store stuff under the bed but because it is all enclosed, you can't see what's under there from the side of the bed!! it makes the whole storing stuff under the bed thing a lot neater.

I was kind of lazy this weekend, I didn't do any of the tidying up I had planned to do, but at least today I went for an hour long walk, maybe at a pace that was a little quick, but it felt good to work up a sweat through exercise, felt really good.

Now that I have bought the bedroom suite, I plan to clear out everything from my room, besides my clothes and get everything sorted. My current bed will go to the spare room along with my desk. My wire stack of draw's with also be moved out of my wardrobe and be put into the spare room as well. By getting these out of my cupboard I will be able to then have proper access to my wardrobe to hang clothing up AND have somewhere to put clothing into a drawer.

I have never had bedside drawers or a tall boy before, how novel :) I may now have to go buy matching bed side lamps :D Ok that can wait a few weeks at least heheh it never ends!

Long weekend

Since I have pro-actively been trying to fix my head space I am feeling a lot better. The whole non cycling thing this week has been a lot easier to deal with since moving my bikes to the spare room so that was definitely a positive.

Saturday morning I headed off to the Vic Market to do my fruit, veg and meat shopping and the place really hasn't changed since I last went there regularly, in fact there was even still quite a number of the same people working there.

Bed shopping is kinda frustrating. There are so many options for bedroom suites and then so many mattresses to choose from and so much of a price variation - it is all kind of overwhelming, what to choose!

I headed off to Bendigo today to watch the cycle racing but with 35+ degree temp and being in pain from my back I just couldn't handle it so went home after a couple of hours. If it was just the heat or just back pain I could handle it, but both together I just couldn't do it so I headed off home. I think going bed shopping this morning didn't help my back pain, c'est la vie, shit happens.

Tomorrow is a public holiday to celebrate the introduction of the 8 hr work day, so as is the Australian way we have a public holiday for it :D I plan to do not much really other than the little bits of housework I can manage and then maybe some more bed shopping, but with it going to be 37 degrees after today's 33 (or 36 degrees when I was in Bendigo) I may not do all that much.

No longer spare

On the weekend, staying at the caravan park on a harder bed for two nights, I noticed on Sunday morning that my back felt better, looser and just more normal! After talking to my physio today I need to buy a new mattress for my bed.  What I plan to do is either buy the right mattress for me and some shitty frame OR buy the right mattress and a nice frame.  If I go the shitty frame option, I will then put that into my spare room and put my current (soon to be old) mattress on it and use it as a spare bed.

I have also started the migration of stuff into the other spare room.  Tonight I moved all my bikes and some bike related stuff into the room so that I am not looking at it day and night.  It has made me wonder at what point do you stop calling yourself a cyclist?

This Saturday I plan to head off to the Queen Vic Market in order to buy fresh fruit n vegies!  Then when I come home I might make a pot of soup or a pot of stew or something cheap to cook to have in the fridge that is healthy.

This afternoon the loungeroom floor was really annoying me, it needed to be vacuumed and I can't cos it hurts my back, so I improvised.  I got my dust buster and I sat on the floor and I used it to vacuum the area's that needed it the most! :D

Spare time?

If you are bored and have some spare time, check this out - http://masterfunny.blogspot.com/

HHCCC again...

I forgot to add that the HHCCC is the best run cycling event I have ever attended and this is two years in a row! The water stops, the supply of energy drinks and bars, the food at the finish line of the climb up Mt Buller, the support vehicles, the road closures - everything about it is just superb!

As mentioned in my previous post, I probably wont be at a point where I can ride it next year, but I would be willing to participate as a volunteer for the ride as it is such an awesome event!!

HHCCC summary

The weekend spent up in Mansfield for the HHCCC was very enjoyable! I didn't get to ride, which was quite disappointing, but realistically I knew this even before I headed off for the weekend.

I had a moment or two when I got a bit sad about not being able to ride, but then I decided to make myself busy by trying to get photo's of the people I knew while they were riding and while I was driving past. Now this sounds kinda dangerous, but when you consider that there are 600+ riders all riding down a single lane road on a road heading skywards they are only going at 10-20km/h and so it was quite safe, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I haven't looked at the photo's yet, I will later in the week though.

Last year, Heather went through 7 tubes before realising that she had a problem with her rim tape, so I decided to bring some spares for her :D

I also managed to get a sunburnt scalp along my hair part line on Saturday as well as a suburnt face :( Sitting at the top of Mt Buller it was only 14 degree's and the sun was great at keeping us warm, pitty I didn't think about wearing a hat or sunscreen though - oops!

In all it really was a great weekend away :)

While I probably wont be able to do the ride next year, maybe the year after ;)