Happy Thanksgiving

It's that time of year again...turkey, trimmings, family...all good things.

It's almost time for us to leave to pick up Alex's grandma and take her to his parents' for Thanksgiving dinner with the family and while I have a few quick minutes to myself and we all know how much I like (no, need) to make lists, I thought I'd make my second annual what I'm thankful for at Thanksgiving list...in no particular order and without referring to last year's list:

• Alex
• our extremely supportive families
• two families that now make my one family
• a back that is almost 100% healed
• pain-free days and now more often than not, pain-free weeks
• wedding planning that has gone extremely smoothly...which means that the wedding will go smoothly!
• Alex's mom's health continuing to improve
• a healthy new niece
• an awesome group of friends who looked after me last winter and who have done a whole bunch of special things for me in the last few months
• people coming to k-town from around the world to spend a very special day with us in a few weeks
• that lack of garbage pick up is probably the biggest issue (read: inconvenience) in our lives right now
• being able to pick up the phone and talk to my family pretty much whenever I need to
• being happy
• the nervous-excited feeling that's been in the pit of my stomach for the last few weeks
• a great medical team
• a great boss and super coworkers!
  
• rainy afternoons and sunny mornings
• thermostat control
• awesome paramedics

There's lots to be thankful for this year...actually, there's always lots to be thankful for, but this year either I'm more thankful or there really is more!

Stupid pedometer and the overuse and abuse of the word so

My pedometer sucks. I walked all over yesterday and by the time I got home only about 1,200 steps had registered...not even close to the 4,000 that was my goal.

So I checked the calibration like the instructions said. I walked my 20 steps and if it was calibrated the thing should have read between 19 and 21 steps. I did it five or six times. The counter moved, oh, five steps over the course of 100+ steps. Not good.

So I figured the next step was to reset it and if that didn't work, I'd pop the battery in and out and if THAT didn't work, I'd take it back this morning.

So I pushed the reset button and held for four seconds as instructed. And then the screen showed 12008 except somehow I must have broken it because the bottom bar on the 8 was missing.

So I made a cup of tea.

After a while I thought I'd try to reset it again and if that didn't work, I'd take the battery out. Reset didn't work. The cover didn't come off. But the numbers had changed. It now said 12258 and the 8 was still missing the bottom bar.

So I gave up and went to bed.

This morning I realized that my single function pedometer has ghosts because it's a clock. That thing, it's a clock! It was reading 09348 with a missing bottom bar this morning and a few minutes later, it was reading 09398. Which means the 8 is an A for am. I got the cover off, popped the battery out and reset the thing. It's working. My little walk to work this morning brought me close to 2,000 - already a better showing than half a day yesterday!

Pedometer Challenge

The Healthy, Safety and Environment Department has decided to do a walking/running challenge with the staff on campus. It is of course completely voluntary. We tried to have a friendly two team competition in our office, but only one team got signed up in time. The challenge started yesterday - we didn't manage to get our pedometers until half way through today, but I'm sure we'll make up for lost time!

Interesting (or not) pedometer facts

• There are approximately 1320 steps in a kilometer for a person with an average stride length of 76 centimeters
• Under 5000 steps/day could indicate you have a sedentary lifestyle
• 5,000-7,499 steps/day could indicate daily activity excluding sports/exercise and could indicate a lifestyle with a low activity level
• 7,500-9,999 steps/day likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and could indicate a somewhat active lifestyle
• 10,000 steps/day could classifies individuals as having an active lifestyle
• More than 12,500 steps/day could indicate a highly active lifestyle
• The number of steps and the type of lifestyle indicated change with weight, height, age and indication of chronic illness

The challenge from the Health, Safety and Environment Office is to walk from here to the other campus.

• Distance between campuses: 395 km or so.
• Number of steps between campuses: 521,400 steps
• Number of steps on my pedometer right now (having only wandered around the office for two hours): 431
• Today's goal (being that it's only part of a day and I have a class tonight): 4,000
• Tomorrow's goal (not knowing what my average steps are anyway) : 8,000

Whooosh....

That's how the last week has felt. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. And it's gone. Oh well, that means there are fewer days to wait...and waiting sucks!

and it's still going whooosh...so that's all!

Snow? In September?

So yesterday, while I was wishing I was at home with my tea and my blanket listening to the rain, apparently it was snowing in Burnaby. In September. Snow. Sheesh...what a crazy world!

Falling rain...

makes me wish for tea and a warm blanket and no work. A book, movie, knitting, or friendly company is purely optional.

I guess for now I'll have to settle for the tea.

Is it five o'clock yet?!?!?!

Soldier-Zipper-Airplane

So, after forcing myself to go to the pool as often as possible over the last six or seven months, I now find myself dragging in the afternoon if I don't go for a swim. This is good news since I loathe swimming and spent the hours between waking in the morning and climbing out of the pool at the end of my swim psyching myself up for the day's laps.

Now instead of the running commentary being along the lines of:

"You need to go swimming because your back will hurt later. You need to go swimming because your back hurts now. You need to go swimming because it's good for you. You need to go swimming because you don't want to have to go back to physio. You need to go swimming because if you do have to go back to physio, you don't want to tell the physiotherapist that you've stopped swimming and that's why you're back. etc etc over and over again"

All I need to say to myself is: "You won't make it to 3:00 this afternoon if you don't go swimming and then you'll end up putting in two or three hours of work at home tonight because you'll be so slow."

And it works. I like the way I feel after a swim. I like that I sleep a million times better at night, even though I'm alone. I like that my back feels good. And I like that somehow I get all kinds of extra energy and get way more done in the afternoons when I swim!

But I still don't really like swimming. I'm getting much faster and my endurance is way better. I've come a long way since February and March when I first got in the pool. Okay, so I was still on a regular schedule of super strong painkillers, I was using a cane, and at that point I was seriously wondering if life was ever going to be "normal" again (what exactly is normal?!?!), but I was only doing a whopping 100 metres in five minutes.

I still need to talk myself through the workout. I got bored of the 1-2-3-4 rhythm. And I got bored of the nursery rhymes I was singing in my head. They both keep me going, but I needed something else.

And then today, today I remember the elementary backstroke from my backward swimming lesson days. So I swam soldier-zipper-airplane and even when I was swimming some other stroke, my brain was chanting soldier-zipper-airplane. It's a good rhythm.

soldier-zipper-airplane
soldier-zipper-airplane
soldier-zipper-airplane

The difference between "Publish Post" and "Save Now"

Yeah, I know, self explanatory, but apparently, I'm just not that smart. For the last week and a bit I have been hitting "Save Now", not "Publish Post." But only here. Not on the photo site. I just haven't published anything there for a week. I'll get to that later today.

Sigh...chalk it up to wedding brain!

Photo shoot

Heddy took some pictures for us. We didn't have engagement pictures taken because, oh, someone hurt her back, but Heddy took us to the park to play the other day.

Playing in the park is fun. I promise not to play on the monkey bars again, because I slipped off and was fine, but I think Alex and Heather thought they would be calling me an ambulance. Sorry guys.

These are just a few of the shots she took. Thanks Heddy!

Problems and solutions

As the guests arrived, Stacey and Fiona gave them each two different coloured index cards.

Stacey giving instructions

Each guest was supposed to write down a problem that Alex and I might encounter after we are married and a solution to that problem. After each gift, I was supposed to read out one solution and its answer.

reading the problems and solutions

Except...Fiona had shuffled them all up, so there were some crazy combinations and much laughter. Some were plain silly, while others made sense in a strange and curious way. Snoring was a common theme...

P: Communicating with each other
S: Put two sinks in the bathroom

P: You have company over and Alex hides in the kitchen to read the paper
S: Whatever Shannon wants

P: Alex snores too much
S: Hide his sandals

P: What side of the bed should each of you sleep on
S: Push him off the bed

P: He mixes salmon with mayonnaise
S: Alternate years

P: What is for dinner?
S: Live with it. Put it on yourself

P: Alex won't stop snoring
S: Choose your side right away and never change. It's worth setting guidelines for the future

P: Alex is messy around the bathroom sink
S: Give him a warning that if he doesn't come now, you'll throw it in the bin. If he doesn't come, throw it in the bin. He'll never do that again. Start off like you mean it.

P: He wears socks with his sandals
S: Don't give him salmon

P: When you call Alex for dinner and he doesn't come, what do you do?
S: Baby oil :) That's it...yes

P: Vacation in Hawaii or London
S: Take two aspirin and call him in the morning

P: Doesn't put the cap on the toothpaste
S: Make Alex sleep on the couch

P: It's 11:00 pm and you have a headache. Alex wants to "talk"
S: Order take out

P: Alex doesn't like your cooking
S: Make him always clean the toilet

P: Where to spend Christmas, with his family or hers?
S: Call Dr. Laura Schlessinger

P: He snores
S: Buy him a cookbook and tell him to learn

P: Alex refuses to put the toilet seat down
S: Turn the other cheek

P: When he cooks dinner (or any meal for that matter) he will use everything in the kitchen
S: Don't use toilet paper holders that need to be pulled apart