No good very bad day

This is how we started our day.

Monkey meet the street. Thank God he ALWAYS wears jeans long sleeves and his helmet, or this could have ended in a trip to the ER. As it is, he is only suffering from a mildly bruised butt, and a VERY VERY bruised pride. Poor Monkey, he loves his motorcycle. It is/was his pride and joy. One of the few things in his life that he bought just for himself, for his own enjoyment. I am just so thankful that the only thing hurt was the bike. It can be fixed, a broken Monkey is much harder to repair.

Thank you all for your thoughts today, it made an incredibly hellacious day a little bit easier to swallow knowing that we were all on the same page. Hugs to you all!

Happy Birthday Angie.

Happy Birthday Angie.

I love you.

I miss your smile.

I miss your laugh.

I miss your way with words.

I miss your grace.

I miss your style.

I miss your hope,

your faith,

your love.

I miss the joy you brought to everyone who came into your life.

I miss the way you used to hiss at things you didn't like.

I miss your red pen moments.

I miss you dumping wet barbies on my bed in the mornings.

I miss watching movies with you.

I miss your gumbo, and your enchiladas.

I miss you singing silent night to me on Christmas eve.

I miss the great herbal remedies you had for me at a moments notice.

I miss your long beautiful hair that always smelled like flowers.

I miss your hugs.

I miss the love of my sister.

I miss every single thing about you, great or small.

I miss you.

It's time to hide

I am sorry I have sort of disappeared, and I apologize in advance for the coming week. You see my sweet sister Angela's 34th birthday will have been on the 18th next week, and I am finding it a bit difficult to face. I am still walking, and as soon as I am feeling a bit better I will definitely be back. I just need to go to ground (in the words of my own sister) until this passes. I love you all and will be back soon.

Not too much to say...

Sunday's walk was fairly uneventful. Probably just as nice as Saturday's though. It's amazing what some beautiful nature can do for the mood. I am about 90% sure that the blisters on my heels are on the mend finally. They don't seem to have gotten any bigger, and still aren't causing me any pain. I am a bit disappointed in my digital camera though, as it seems to have decided that it doesn't like sim cards and keeps having issues with them no matter what kind i try to use in it. I wanted to take some pictures on my walk by the celery fields, but my sassy little camera decided that it just wasn't going to happen. I am not a morning person, but I am going to have to do my 3 miles before work tomorrow as I am going to be a lipstick model tomorrow evening after work! lol! One of the ladies at the church is a Mary Kay rep, and she asked me and my good friends Michele and Dee to help her out. She said I would get some make-up out of the deal, and I think it will be a lot of fun, so why the heck not!!! Hopefully it won't be too dark in the morning, it makes me so nervous walking alone in the dark. I'm such a scaredy-cat!

Training week 1 day 4

Today's walk was simply fantastic. I don't yet know if the blisters got worse, because I covered them with 2nd skin bandages. I'm not quite sure what the difference today was, but I was just completely in tune. I walked down past the old celery fields, and got to see TONS of different kinds of birds. The weather was perfect, my feet were feeling great, there was great scenery. Once I hit my turn around point I felt so good that I decided to just keep going. I didn't want to push myself too much though, because I had forgotten my phone and had no way to call for help if I needed it. My goal tomorrow is to walk 6 miles. I am just amazed at how easily I have been able to adapt to all this walking. Last Sunday I struggled to complete a 3 mile walk, and today I was ready to push myself further than I had gone before. I feel like I really want to put myself to the test, and prove to myself that I can do ANYTHING I push myself to do. It has also done wonders for my mental health. Having an hour completely to myself every other day has be incredibly cathartic. I think about Angie a lot. I often feel like she is right there walking beside me cheering me on, telling my to take life by the reigns and go for it. I cannot imagine how I am going to feel in October when the walk is finally here. I want to thank you all again for your support and kind words. Knowing that you are all pulling for me and cheering me on is a great inspiration. I just hope that as this journey continues I find the fundraising as easy as the walking!

Training week 1 day 3

You guessed it, the blisters STILL have not subsided. I was happy to discover that the spot I thought was a blister between my toes is not actually a blister after all. Unfortunately I am still fighting the same two blisters on the insides of my heels. While they are not getting a whole lot bigger, they again grew on today's walk. I stopped a few times to slather them up with Vaseline, and it did seem to keep them from getting a lot bigger. Today was supposed to be just another 3 mile walk, but it was only another mile to walk to Fit 2 Run where I bought my second pair of shoes. The guy who I bought the shoes from was there, and I showed him the little buggers. He re-laced my shoes so that hopefully my heels will be more secure, and not slip so much. He really thought that it was just that since I was only skipping every other day walking that the blisters I got from the asics were just getting enough friction to keep them from getting better. He also showed me a second skin blister kit, and I used it to bandage my boo-boos. I have tried covering them with moleskin, and corn doughnuts, and band-aid blister pads, but my feet sweat so darn much that they just fall off. Lets hope the adhesive on the second skin is stronger, and a bit more water resistant (yuck). I did however not have ANY shin ache today at work or while walking! I think maybe my legs just needed to get used to being active again. I was also really worried about being cold since it was only in the low 40's, but my nice new pants, and the great jacket mom helped me sew were just right. All blisters aside it was a pretty nice walk. I had no problems at all walking an extra mile. I am really surprised at how well my body has reacted to all this exercise. It has to be in total shock going from zero activity to walking 10 miles in a week. Yippee 10 miles, only another 7 or 800 more to go.....

Recovery...

Ugh, thank goodness for these rest days in between. I dug out the heating pad last night and saw tons of improvment on the muscle aches I was having in my shins. Unfortunatly the blister that started on my heel on Sunday has indeed grown. Hopefully tommorows walk won't make it any worse. While I did cover it with moleskin on tuesday when I walked my feet sweat so much it just came off. I'm not sure what I will try to keep it from getting worse tommorow. I am doing everything I should to prevent the blisters, but they still seem to be rearing their ugly heads. I wore fancy wicking socks that had no cotton in them, I got good fitting shoes that were nice and meshy. I even bought bodyglide and smeared it on my feet. Damn blisters! I will conqure you!!!!! Hopefully tommorow's walk won't turn me into a popsicle, it is supposed to be unusually cold.

Training week 1 day 2

Well, I decided that I needed to look into my shoe issue after I developed blisters so quickly, and was able to find a nice pair of Adidas shoes in a wide size. They seem to be a much better fit! Today was my second day of walking. It wasn't nearly as easy as my first walking day, because the muscles on the outsides of my shins was pretty sore. I managed though to walk through it , and with the help of some good music I started to forget the aching. I walked another 3 miles in an hour. Unfortunately one of the blisters I got from my first pair of shoes got a tiny bit bigger. I didn't put anything on it before I set out because it wasn't really bothering me, and since I had better fitting shoes, and nice fancy socks I didn't think it would be necessary. I did also get a new small blister between my toes. Hopefully I will be able to deal with these blister issues quickly and not have that problem for long. There was a woman at the shoe store that went so far as to promise me that I would get them during the walk. That however just made me more determined NOT to get one! I have 9 months to prepare, and figure out how to avoid the blisters, and I fully intend on doing it. Tomorrow is another rest day, and I am supposed to walk another 3 miles on Thursday, hopefully my shins will be feeling better and I won't have to skip out. Thank you all for your sweet words of encouragement, it really helps to keep me up and going. And if you have ANY tips please let me know, I can take all the advice I can get!

Training

I registered for the breast cancer 3-day in Tampa this year! I even got a new pair of tennies and started training today. I was lucky enough to find some nice asics gel-frantic 3 shoes on clearance at Kohls. Now I just need to hunt down a second pair. Sunday this week was a 3 mile walk in 1 hour. When I set out it was more of an experiment than anything, because I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk that far, let alone walk that far in an hour. It was surprisingly easy though. I didn't really have any troubles with the pace or the distance. Hopefully I won't be changing my tune in the morning! I guess just because I am fully padded that doesn't mean that I'm not able to haul all this weight around. Hopefully all this walking and training will help me shed a lot of the extra pounds I have added on. I did however develop a few small blisters that I will have to deal with before I push myself too far. From what I have heard blisters are the mortal enemy of the 3-day walker. Hopefully I will get my battles with the blisters over with before October. If any of my dear blogging friends out there would be willing to donate towards my $2300.00 goal I will be forever grateful!!! Just visit the link in my sidebar, and follow the directions from there.