Mile 32!

I am now 32 miles into my training, and I think I may have actually conquered the stupid blisters! I took a little break to give my feet a chance to heal so I could really see if I had solved my blister problems. I had two 3 mile walks this week and I am so happy to say that I am blister free! My miracle seems to be a combo of large quantities of Vaseline, and these fantastic thorlos socks!




The have great padding at the toes and heels, but none in the middle where you don't really need it. I just hope that this wonder combo will continue to work when I am walking longer and longer distances. Unfortunately not all my pains are completely gone, because I seem to have developed some pain in the pads behind my big toes. I will have to do some investigating to see what this may be caused by and what I can do to remedy it. I probably need to invest in those $50 dollar insoles, but I am just feeling a little cheap at the moment. Fifty dollars is a lot of money for a little foam doo-dad. I suppose it is worth it though if it keeps me from pain. We'll have to see....

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.

the good things

Yummy cheap pink champagne,

A warm bed, laptop, jeans, music and bloggie friends,

this is a great way to relax after a long day at work!

It is the little things in life that make it complete.

My top 10 good things. (in no particular order)

1. Sushi.

2. Blue Jeans.

3. Opals.

4. My sweet animals, Charlie, Shelbie, Sunny, and Harry

5. Health.

6. The other half to my whole, John (monkey).

7. Good friends like Michele, Liz, and Kate.

8. Music.

9. Family.

10. Faith in God.

Just another manic Monday......

I don't usually mind Mondays, don't get me wrong I don't really look forward to them, but off all the days of the week, I like it more than most. If I could have erased the start to this week though, I would have puled out the biggest pink pearl eraser I could find. It was hectic, it was sad, it made my whole body ache. I knew last Friday that it wasn't going to be pleasant. I got wind of some not so good news that I knew was going to rear it's nasty little head today,and the fact that I knew it was going to happen, and I had no way to help, or warn the person whom it would affect ate at me all weekend. To make it short, one of the tellers that I work with had a shortage a few weeks back that we were never able to locate. It was, unfortunately of a decent amount. We all are certain that she did NOT take the money for her own personal gain. But since the company we work for recently merged with another, and all the suits higher up are worried about their OWN jobs, they came down hard. Too hard. This beautiful young girl who has two young children, and an ex that provides her with not even the smallest sliver of help. She is also doing her darnedest to go to school at night to become a crime scene technician, and get good grades. Now she has no job. It was much more difficult for me to work today when I felt I was working under immoral, unethical people. I fully understand that banks cannot just take losses and not do anything about it. This situation had me so upset for a number of reasons though. There is of course the most obvious one that this poor woman has two kids, no job, and no help. But that there was another teller working there about a year ago that had a terrible attitude, and because she did not follow our policies lost the bank 4 times as much money. She did not get fired until the third instance of the same issue. This was the first time this teller had been out a large amount. Normally she has a near-flawless balancing record. I also don't feel that they gave enough time to locate the outage. I wonder if mister high-and-mighty Napoleon in his fancy window office has ever known what it is like to struggle, probably not.....I will get off my soapbox now.

I do however, have better news to announce. I have decided to walk in the breast cancer 3-day in October this year. I have thought about it for a few years now, but I was so worried about being able to raise the $2300 that they require you donate to walk. But when I found out that the last day of the walk was my sister's wedding anniversary I took it to be a sign, and decided that this was the year to go for it. While she did not have breast cancer, I figure it is a great cause, and if they can manage to find a cure for breast cancer it is a great stride in curing ALL cancers, even the one Angie had. I'll be completely honest though, the thought of walking 3 days straight, and raising such a large sum of money scares the bejesus out of me! I will be setting up a link on my blog where my bloggie friends can help me towards my goal, and just be warned, I will be planning on pestering you for donations! I've got a long way to go, and I need EVERYONE'S help. Also check out Angie's best friend Kate's blog Going The Distance. She is competing in a triathlon this year in memory of my sister also, and I know she needs donations as much as I do.

I hope to have some of the pictures I took in Arkansas uploaded tomorrow to share with you, there just wasn't time to get them loaded today. I told you it was a Manic Monday

Soap

Yes, I am blogging about soap. Not ordinary soap, organic soap. WHY? Well, I have battled for a good many years with an extremely irritated scalp. I have been plagued by a constant stream of very irritated little bumps all over my head. These bumps would get so bad that I would often wake in the morning with open sores on my poor little noggin that both took ages to heal, and hurt like the dickens. Think open wound meets hairbrush, and shampoo. Shampoo in an open wound burns. It burns a lot. I got into a terrible cycle. I would wash my hair, and attempt to skip a day in between, then my hair would get so oily Exxon would call the house. I then had to go to washing every day. The only problem with that was that the more I washed, the more irritated my scalp would become. I went to a dermatologist who told me that what I had was seborrheic dermatitis
which is essentially dandruff. Now mind you, I didn't have "dandruff" no flaky skin, just a very irritated, bumpy, red, hot scalp. The Dr's treatment for this involved 5 different medicated shampoos that I would alternate daily. Not only was this expensive, it didn't work. All 5 shampoos just managed to irritate my head more. I decided that I was not going to foot the bill for something that just made it worse, so I went back to regular shampoo for many years, and just learned to deal with the pains. Until now. I have discovered the answer to my prayers. Burt's Bees Super Shiny Grapefruit & Sugar Beet shampoo. The key to my miracle shampoo? No parabens, and more importantly no Sodium laurel (or laureth) sulfate. SLS is usually the second ingredient in most normal shampoos and this chemical is what makes soap lather up. It can also be very very irritating to a small percentage of people. I also suffer from a fairly rare skin hypersensitivity, which in layman's terms means that my skin gets abnormally irritated at the slightest of things. If I were to take a Popsicle stick and lightly write hello on my arm or chest I would greet the world with a deep red howdy in about 2 minutes. I am now fairly certain that the two are related. I cannot recommend Burt's bees products more highly. They are about as pure as products from large commercial chains can get. I am certain I am not the only one plagued with such sensitive skin, and after having such a hard time discovering something that completely cleared up every last bump and hot spot on my scalp I felt it was only right to share the wealth. Try out their products, you just might be amazed!

( On a side note, you MUST use conditioner with this type of soap. When you put it in your hair, and lather up, your hair will feel quite sticky. That is totally normal. As soon as you rinse it out, and put on your conditioner that feeling will go away, and leave you with amazingly soft shiny hair. I promise!)