onepinkfuzzy

angie's essence...as explored by trail running (and mixed-media art)

(But first - I did an impromptu run on Monday night, and ending up running faster than I have in months. It was great! And Ash is finally back home, how awesome.)

Click on the photos to view larger sizes...

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Another double-digit week, yay! The next two weeks are full of Ash-time, though, so I won't be getting much running in. I can't wait for winter, when it's cool enough that I can run at lunchtime.

I went up Mt Lemmon yesterday and it was beautiful. A great hike, followed by pie. Mmmm...

Did my first spinning class on Saturday since the injury - it went well, although it kicked. my. butt.

My wisdom teeth will be removed next week. I'm not looking forward to that.

Here's some of what I've been working on:

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Man, there is nothing like routine to make one feel better. The relief of getting up early in the morning to get a nice 3-mile run in makes the rest of the day flow that much smoother.

I'm grateful that I'm able to run relatively twinge-free, especially this week, as things are - once again - rocky on the relationship front. I wasn't going to say anything, lest I sound like a broken record, but it's a big "thing" in my life right now that I'm struggling with, along with my yearly cycle of greater anxiety/depression in the summer months.

You know "SAD" (Seasonal Affective Disorder), where people get depressed in the winter when they don't see sunlight that often? I swear, I have the reverse. It's probably not a good thing that I live in the desert. Summers are that much worse. The anxiety and irritability drives me - and everyone around me - nuts. I'm guessing it's related to a PTSD anniversary, although due to my cloudy memory, I really have no clue. In May, the irritability starts, followed by heightened anxiety in June that builds throughout July. August is usually the worst month, although it's extended into September, and even October on rare occasions. Usually, once fall comes, relief comes with it. Give me clouds and trees and shade and cold any day over warmth and heat and sunshine.

I know, I'm weird.

Hey, I ran double-digit mileage last week! 10.3 miles. Yay! This week, it looks like I'm on track for just over 14 miles. I laid out my fall schedule yesterday, and I'm getting psyched. Because the knee is still slightly twinge-ing, I'm going to wait to register for Pemberton for another month or so. See if I can slowly increase my mileage without the twinge getting worse. *Fingers crossed!*

I like the determined feeling I get when I train. It gives me an outlet for my focus. It gives me a reason to get up and move my body (which in turn, makes me feel good). It gives me hope and reason for possibility and change...hey, sounds like Barack Obama :-)

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

My first "long" run since injuring myself in April was this morning; I chose to visit my old friend, Phoneline Trail, for about 4.25 miles. It was slow, hot, humid going. I want to say it was fun, or it was a blast, or it was awesome. But truthfully, it was hard and I could tell I've gained weight. Mostly, though, it was a relief. I was running trails again, running a longer distance than my weekday runs, out early on a Sunday morning like normal. Like usual. Like I've been craving for the last few months. It's the first start of my return to my routine, what gives me safety and comfort and stress relief and hope and possibility. Thank goodness.

Pi

Fuzzy (aka "Fuzz")

Chris & Fuzz sleep away a Saturday afternoon

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Three ~2 mile runs in the last seven days and two gym visits...not bad after a summer of maybe once-a-week workouts.

Still have Pemberton 50k on Feb 14 2009 in mind.

And I figure it starts with just a few steps. A couple miles. Eventually, the steps will link together and I will finish 31 miles.

I'll be getting a CT scan and going to a neurologist to check up on my brain...make sure there's nothing wrong. I think it was just a major bonk and I need to take better care of myself - being very aware of my fueling and hydration needs, even when I'm not in major training mode. Which I can't wait for, by the way!

Ash and I have extended our family - by adopting two adorable kittens. Pi (my name for the black one) and Fuzzy (Ash's name for the - you guessed it - fuzzy multicolored tabby) are sisters and they are adorable. And loud (2 am - thumpthumpthumpthump as they chase each other across the house). And they get cranky when I spend the night at Chris's house. And they are currently curled up between Ash and me while I type and Ash watches Alvin & the Chipmunks (although Fuzzy keeps trying to walk on the keyboard, goofball).

Ash is about to go on a 12-day vacation with his grandmother to Michigan. I hope he has tons of fun. But I am going to miss him!!!! I will get my first 'long' run in while he's out. Now that Sabino Canyon is open again, I'll head up the road. It's been so long. I miss it.

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

It's Tuesday afternoon, and something feels off in my midsection. I ignore it, thinking that it's just minor aches and pains. I haven't eaten since 4 pm, but I'm not hungry. Throughout the evening, the pain and pressure in my pelvic area worsens and the pain during urination is almost unbearable but I still ignore it thinking I'll go to the doctor in the morning, so I put my five-year-old son Ash to bed. A half-hour later, I realize I need to go to Urgent Care. This hurts, and now there's blood.

I wake him up and we go; I forgo eating dinner so we can make it before they close. It's a relatively quick process - in and out in an hour-and-a-half - and my sleepy son is doing well. I feel sorry for him as we go to the nearest 24-hour Walgreens so I can fill my antibiotic prescription. I get to the counter and wait. And wait. And wait and wait some more. The pharmacists are all busy. I am worrying that it's 10 pm already and my son needs to be in bed and how long will it take to fill the prescriptions after they get them - but they won't get them because they are taking too damn long! I realize I am hungry and I open a granola bar that has been lurking in my purse. I eat a few bites as a pharmacist finally comes over to help me. She asks if I've been there before, and suddenly I know something is very very wrong.

I feel sick and I think I'm hyperventilating. I say so out loud, thinking this is very similar to an episode I had 15 years ago. I think to myself that if I can't catch my breath, I'm going to pass out. The world goes gray, then black, and I see a train rushing at me and I think there's a train wreck. I realize I'm dreaming and it's time to wake up and I bolt upright. There's a weirdly familiar guy looking at me, and I realize he's a pharmacist at...where was I? Walgreens? You mean Walgreens isn't part of the dream?

Ash - where's Ash! I panic, but he's right next to me, freaked out. I hear people running around, there are so many people here that weren't here a minute ago. They are asking me questions, giving me tissues, telling me how I threw myself backward from the counter rigidly as though I had a seizure and how I landed on my head and kept my eyes open the whole time. Someone is asking Ash if he wants to look at toys. Don't let my son leave!

The paramedics arrive and ask me to call someone to help with Ash. His dad is not answering his phone; neither is Chris. I'm scared for Ash, who is up too late and freaked out. The paramedics are insistent that I call someone - anyone - and I keep trying Chris, hoping he hears his phone - I know he's awake, he's preparing to leave for MI for 8 days the following morning. Finally he answers and relief floods my body.

Chris arrives in record time and the paramedics insist I go to the ER even though I don't want to. I know I didn't take care of my body today - I didn't eat enough. I know I've been running on fumes for the last four days, barely able to put one foot in front of the other as I moved my house and worked through intense deadlines and meetings. I know I have a infection raging inside my body.

Cody, one of the paramedics, asks me how I know Chris. I tell him he's my boyfriend and ask why he wants to know. Cody informs me that he plays soccer with Chris occasionally and comments on how good of a player Chris is. I laugh.

They hook me up to an IV on the way to the hospital and it hurts. I am scared for Ash, worried about my meetings the next day and really worried about Chris getting ready in time for his flight out the next morning.

I wait in the ER three hours (Ash gets to visit me once) before I'm finally told it'll be another six (!) hours before a doctor sees me. Screw this. I know what's wrong with my body and my son needs to go to bed and my boyfriend needs to pack. (Side note: If that's not a classic woman "must deny myself to take care of the family" then I don't know what is!) After a big emergency, someone finally comes down to see me about my request to leave, has me sign a waiver and asks me to keep someone around for the next 48 hours to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Finally, we leave. I get Ash to sleep around 1:30 am and I have a fitful night's sleep. This morning I have a meeting at 9 am, but I know I can't make it. I text a coworker, who jumps right in to cover me, and wait for Ash's dad Johnny to finally get all the messages we left on his phone the night before. I can't meet him at our normal meeting spot to exchange Ash; my car is still at Walgreens. Five minutes after our meeting time, I get the call. He comes over to my house to pick up Ash and offers to watch Ash this evening while I continue to recover.

Chris comes and gives me a ride to my car before he leaves. I'm tempted to ask the Walgreens manager for the surveillance tape so I can actually see what happened.

When I arrive back home, I discover two more caterpillars in my living room (one of which has created a hole in my carpet under a box - can anyone help me identify? I tried to upload the photo but it's not working) and realize my internet is still not working. I have one more meeting I need to attend and at least two hot deadlines to make today. I can't do it. All I want to do is lie down on my bed and rest my head. And so I do.

My coworkers and clients are gracious and understanding, for which I am grateful. I have a massive headache, but think that the reason I don't have a bigger goose egg on the back of my head is because I was wearing a plastic clip to hold my hair back and it shattered as I fell. That's two in one week, dammit!

Sigh.

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

While his dad honeymoons in Hawaii (I'm not jealous of the honeymoon, but quite jealous of the location :) ), Ash and I go on vacation for seven days.

How does one fill up seven days on the cheap?

With grandparents: we travel to Mesa to 1. attend a highway dedication as my last assignment before I'm officially set free for a week, and 2. stay at my parent's house for two nights, which includes lots of Papa/Ash time and tons of pool time (some with a multitude of cousins) and a run with my mama.

With camping: We wake up Friday morning at home and hit up Target to find a new cooler to replace Chris's broken one, but all the coolers at Target have wheels and that is just not acceptable. Then we try to pack my car. It's too small. Chris has a Suburu Outback, so we unpack my car and repack his car. We finally head out of town an hour after we wanted to.

Up US 191 we go, through Safford and up up up to the mining towns of Clifton and Morenci, where we find a taco shop on the side of the highway and eat lunch. Then we stop at an overlook to view the largest open-pit copper mine.

Continuing up up up this crazy winding highway, we start smelling gas in the car and start worrying. Pulling over at a rest stop, Ash and I check out a scary spider and Chris tries to figure out what's wrong with the car - nothing that we can tell.

A storm is approaching. We spend the next hour-and-a-half playing 20 Questions while Chris navigates the sharp curves in a storm and I jump at the loud thunder. We hit Hannagan Meadow and figure out that we want to go to the East Fork of the Black River, so we'll hop on a Forest Service dirt road and head on back.

We navigate our way to the camping areas and are amazing by both the beauty of the valley and the horrendous amount of RVs (and generators). It's raining and we can't find a camping spot. I don't want to continue on to Big Lake, because I'm worried that we'll spend yet another hour in the car (it's already been 7 hours, counting all the pit stops), and find just as many RVs there. Finally, we find a lone camping spot. Whew!

The rain lessons to a sprinkle, so we hop out to set up camp. Halfway through setting up my sister's tent (which we've never laid eyes on before), the rain intensifies. Yikes! But we manage to get the tent up and camp set. It's back to a sprinkle so we try to start a fire to roast marshmallows and hot dogs, but we don't have any kindling and everything's all wet. We roast our food over yellow pages (the only dry paper in the car), then pull out glow sticks before heading to bed.

The next morning is clear. Chris and Ash head out to explore the river and I get my coffee and relax at the campsite. After breakfast, we gather some kindling and lay it out on a tarp to dry during the day so we can have a REAL fire that night. Then we go for a hike and quickly realize that this is a fisherman's river. No one hikes. There are no trails. None!

Rain clouds are approaching, so we head back to camp to cover the kindling and pack up camp so we don't get wet. We spend the next four (four!) hours inside the tent and we first get rain, then hail (!), then more rain. We read, relax, play 20 Questions and Uno, and then try to sleep a little (yeah, doesn't work with a five-year-old). It finally lets up and we come out to try to start a fire and make dinner.

The Fire Queen (that'd be me) makes a kick-ass fire and we spend a few hours enjoying the starry sky, bright fire and our neighbor's generator. (Campground = never again. We'll do the dispersed camping thing along some random dirt road somewhere, thankyouverymuch.)

Sunday morning dawns bright and clear. We enjoy taking our time to take down camp. Ash plays air guitar while we disassemble and dry off everything. On our way out, we decide to take a "long cut" instead of a short cut and head to Alpine. On our way, we found a herd of elk! We quickly pulled over and did a spur-of-the-moment hike to sneak up on the herd to get a closer look.

Once we get to Alpine, we realize that lunch (lunchmeat, cheese, etc.) has fallen into the melted ice water in the cooler, thus rendering it unedible. Dammit!

Ash munches on peanut butter as we drive over to New Mexico. Once we make it to Glenwood, we find a little (really amazingly delicious) diner called the Blue Front. Our cheeseburgers and fries fortify us for our big expedition: hiking the Catwalk.

Surprise, surprise: it's raining!

Okay, I'm from the desert. In the desert, one does not go up canyons when it's raining. Flash floods, duh! (as Ash would say...) We sit in the car and debate what to do. A friend of Chris's has been here when it flash flooded, and due to the really cool construction of this trail (a metal walkway bolted into the canyon side), the flash flood rushed right under their feet while they stayed safe. We observe other folks heading up the canyon. We decide we will start hiking up the trail and if the trail stays too low down next to the water, we'll hightail it outta there.

But first, we must make raingear for Ash: a garbage bag :)

Up the canyon we go. The trail stays high and dry, then we hit the main attraction: the Catwalk. It's awesome fun. And the canyon is gorgeous. The water is remaining at the same level. The waterfalls are amazing. Folks are all over the canyon (some in the water, which just freaks me out). Ash hikes the entire 1.1 mile up and back. No flash floods at all, just amazingly beautiful scenery. The long cut was totally worth it.

It takes us four more hours (including a pit stop in Safford at Jerry's for breakfast-for-dinner and yet another rain storm) before we get home, 12 hours after we left our camp site.

It was exhausting and did I mention the rain? But it was a blast.

(the entire photo album)

Posted by Angie's Pink Fuzzy at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)