Whap, whap!

A month or so ago, I put Chloe on the top of the cat perch. She had been curious about it but had never actually worked up the nerve to get up there on her own. Now she loves it and spends a lot of time snoozing there.

This morning Wally wanted the perch but Chloe was already up there. For about 30 minutes, she successfully defended her perch by smacking and generally intimidating Wally. That's pretty unusual for Chloe, and I'm glad Kent was able to get this picture of her getting all fierce with Wally.

Wally and the bed

Wally won't get under the covers with us at night, that's strictly Eddie's deal. That's not to say he won't ever get under the covers, he just prefers to do it when no one is in the bed.

Groan

I've had seven major abdominal surgeries and after the sixth one I really got serious about getting and staying fit. The seventh surgery was to repair incisional hernias I had from all the other surgeries, and I have a synthetic mesh in my abdomen as part of that repair. Two years ago, I tore scar tissue away from the mesh while doing some intense yoga--as my surgeon said, in a battle between scar tissue and mesh, the mesh wins every time. It's never fully healed so I pay attention and modify a couple of abdominal exercises so I don't strain that spot too much. But I only need to modify a couple, generally ones that involve using both legs straight and raising and lowering them--that movement just puts too much stress on the scar tissue and I get immediate pain when I do it. But I can do pretty much all of my workouts without modification. As I said yesterday, I'm pretty fit now or so I thought.

I did the Core Cross Train DVD this morning and I'm going to feel it all day. Heck I feel it now. I had to modify quite a bit and not because of my mesh/scar tissue problem but because these exercises are hard. Whew. I can already feel my legs and it's not even 9:30 AM. Tomorrow's run should be . . . interesting.

I'll be doing this workout more, I intend to conquer it.

The value of online reviews

I love customer reviews on Amazon, and I learn just as much from negative reviews as I do from the positive reviews. I use workout DVDs at home, so I rely on those customer reviews when I get new workout DVDs.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized I wanted to use my stability ball more. I have an abdominal workout DVD and one of the ab sessions is done on the ball. It’s pretty tough so I thought I’d get a lot out of other stability ball workouts. I scouted around on Amazon and found one called 10 Minute Solution: Pilates on the Ball. The reviews were mostly positive, so I turned to the negative ones to see what customers didn't like. Turns out this workout is not for beginners and you really ought to be pretty familiar with Pilates because the instructor doesn’t explain the poses, she assumes you already know them. While nice to know, those comments weren’t negatives for me. I’m pretty fit, I’ve done Pilates for almost three years and I definitely wanted a challenge. So I ordered that one and also Balance Ball: Core Cross Train.

I did the 10 Minute Solution one yesterday and wow, what a fantastic workout. Today was a run day and I sure felt my legs more than I usually do! I’ll try the Core Cross Train DVD tomorrow.

The pink mouse

I really do not like the pink mouse. You might remember it's one of several toys the kitties have and is one of their favorite toys, probably because it's covered with fur. For a while, the kitties would bat that toy (and others, lets be fair) under the armoire. I solved that problem by having Kent use Velco to fasten a strip of wood between the legs that effectively blocked the opening. He painted it black so it really doesn't show.

My desk also sits quite low to the ground--since it's one of those console desks that you can hide behind doors, the desk isn't like a normal desk. So you see where this is going, right? Yes now that the armoire is blocked, the cats have turned to my desk. And the picture you see on the left happens probably a dozen times a day. Then the boys will circle my desk, roll around trying to get the mouse, cry like crazy, bat at my feet and then pull out my ruler, which is what I use to get the mouse out from under the desk.

This video only shows Wally and he's actually not being too bratty. But multiple this by 12 and ramp up the rolling, batting and meowing and you can see why I don't like that mouse.

The joys of allergies

Thankfully I don't have horrible ones like Kent--I've seen his eyes swollen almost entirely shut as he wept copiously and that's never happened to me. But around about September, I start getting the headaches, itchy eyes and full sinuses. What makes this situation a little unusual is that this season is also the start of my noisy head. After I blow my nose, my sinuses make whistly-squeaky-squealy noises you don't normally hear coming from someone's head.

At first I thought these sounds were audible only to me. Then Kent started telling me he heard them. Great. THEN I realized that the cats heard them too.

And that's what happened this morning. Wally was snoozing away on the perch, I blew my nose and the whistly sounds woke him up. In fact he glared at me. I guess he didn't appreciate being awakened that way.

Happy birthday, Mom!

I love this picture of my mother, taken by Kent this summer in Colorado. The colors are so vivid and she looks so relaxed and happy sitting on the hay. So here's hoping today echoes some of that for you, Mom.