Sunday Coffee – No Real Autumn

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Thistle

They say that San Antonio had the wettest September on record this year. August and September are often times of sudden rains/floods here, after months of drought through the summer. But this September, we broke the record for most rain in September by mid-month. By the end, we had nearly 20 inches of rain through the month. It may not be much compared to some areas, but here, it’s massive. Flooding, road damage, construction delays, and tons of humidity.

It’s this last one that has basically nullified San Antonio’s chance for a real autumn. Sure, it might be 15 degrees cooler than the summer right now, but the heat index is still way up there, and it’s soupy outside. Chest-constricting soupy. There was one day after we got home from vacation that I went out for a walk because the morning temp had finally dropped to 72. The humidity wasn’t as bad that morning, and I relished it. The next day, the temp was just as low, but I walked outside excited only to find that it felt like 85 and sweltering out. Not okay!

Unfortunately, this is a trend that plans to continue. Autumn is never long in San Antonio. We get a bit of small relief in September (temps in the high 80s instead of the high 90s, with mornings dropping to the low 70s), and then sometime in October we have a few weeks of gloriously cool days. Then suddenly we drop into the 40s, and we start the winter rollercoaster of 40-50 degree swings. Not uncommon to wake up to temps in the 30s and then to have them hit 80s by afternoon. You learn to dress in layers in San Antonio. But those few weeks of autumn days, days when we can keep the windows open overnight and actually turn off the a/c (a thing which is still unthinkable at the moment) – I live for those. I live for the cool morning walks and bright crisp days. And this year, it looks like we’re not going to get any of them.

(Fall 2012 on a muggy morning in early November)

This humidity is stripping away our days of autumn. Every day our temps look beautiful and feel awful. Right now it looks like we might have at least a few days of fall (in two weeks), but I’m not very hopeful. We had that hope for this weekend too, and the cool, dry front never made it this far south. Boo. I want a chance to wear those three-quarter-sleeved shirts and light sweaters, and I may not get it this year.

Of course, there’s no controlling the weather, but I’m just sending out this light wish into the universe: Please at least let us have a few weeks of autumn. Please? I suppose in the meantime, I’ll keep playing with Halloween decorations and RIP books and pretending we might see a few leaves change color at some point before the traditional windstorms of November rip them all away.

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The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware

Posted on October 5, 2018 by Thistle

Hal is struggling to get by in the years after her mother’s death, reading tarot cards for tourists and dodging loan sharks who want their money repaid. When the notice of her supposed grandmother’s death arrives, with promises of potential windfall, Hal decides to step into the roll. The only plan is to walk away with enough money to get her out of the hole, but she has a lot more coming to her, in more ways than one.

A couple years ago, and read Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10, and didn’t enjoy it. When I saw this one at the airport bookstore on our way out to vacation last month, I thought it looked exactly like my kind of book. I really like books with elements of the occult. But I really like books that are set on cruises, too, and since Cabin 10 (set on a cruise) failed me, I decided to go a safer route that day in the bookstore. I ordered this one from the library instead.

Turns out, it was good. Really good. Read-it-in-a-day, drop-all-else good. The pacing was excellent, the characters were fun, the mystery was well woven. I did guess the answer long before Hal did, but it never felt like it was obvious from page 1 or anything. And I enjoyed Hal’s journey along the way. The book wasn’t perfect – some continuity errors bothered me (like a character using Hal’s nickname long before Hal ever told her) – but it made for an enjoyable afternoon, and I’m glad I gave Ware’s books a second chance.

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Wellness Wednesday – Brave Pajama 5K

Posted on October 3, 2018 by Thistle

On Sunday, I participated in my first 5K since March 2016. Yay! I made a goal for this school year to do a 5K each month if possible, and had to go down to the wire for September since vacation took up a big chunk of the month. My friend Stephanie also signed up for this one, but unfortunately she got sick the night before so she couldn’t attend. So Jason, the boys, and I all went to the race site, making sure to go early enough to get a parking spot in the small lot. The boys brought a football to throw around in the park while Jason and I waited in the shade for the 5K to start.

Honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve done one of these, and I was thrown off by no longer having a friend to walk with. I debated wearing the race shirt vs an exercise shirt, in case I wanted to run any sections (which I wouldn’t have been doing if I wasn’t alone), and decided on the race shirt even though it was cotton and not great for sweating. I debated bringing a water bottle, but chose not to because there would be water stations. I debated whether to eat a smaller breakfast because we left the house so early, or a larger one in case I decided to run, and chose the smaller. All these decisions were mistakes! I’ll know better next time! One other BIG mistake was putting on bug spray. With all the recent rain, I knew there would be tons of mosquitos, and they are very attracted to me. The spray did its job, but it led to other problems later.

The 5K started late, and it was almost 10 before we could walk across the start line. By that point the clouds were half-gone and it was starting to get really hot and humid. I wasn’t too worried because I knew most of the course would be under tree cover – until I found out that they had to change the course due to flooding. Now, more than a mile would be out in the open under increasingly sunny conditions. Oy.

About a quarter mile in, I decided to add some running into my 5K. For a minute at a time, I would jog slowly. I’m not sure how many of these running sections I did (maybe 15 mins total?). My indoor running doesn’t prepare me at all for outdoor running in shoes! My legs were on fire for the first two miles of the 5K. Unfortunately the last mile was all under baking sun, so that made things even worse than the sore, stiff legs! I finished strong, running, arms raised in triumph. Jason got this fun picture of me sticking my tongue out at Ambrose because he was booing me right before I got to the finish line. Ha! But yeah, I was hot and sweaty and exhausted by the time I crossed that line!

I cooled down, had a kolache and half a breakfast taco, and drank tons of water. Then my upper arms started itching like crazy under my sleeves. At first I thought it was just the sweat and my circulation being very surface level due to the heat and high heart rate, but then I looked and my arms had broken out in hives!! <– I’ve had hives a couple times in my life, but only as an allergic reaction. I hadn’t touched anything unusual – but I had put on bug spray. Here’s the thing: I’ve used this bug spray many times, and come on, I know my skin is ridiculously sensitive to stuff, so of course I used a sensitive skin variety! It’s not supposed to cause a reaction, and it never has before. But there’s nothing else that could have caused this reaction. It had to be a combination of bug spray and sweat and the non-wicking sleeves rubbing against the spray on my arms.

I immediately cooled/washed my arms off with water, and I got the attention of one of the volunteers to ask if they had a first aid area. Someone had a kit with hydrocortisone cream, thank goodness. That helped, and a nurse poured water down my back from my neck to help cool my circulation really quickly. We decided to leave then (after grabbing a pic of the official results) to get some Benedryl, and get me home to shower the rest of the spray off. It was the weirdest thing. I’ve never had this kind of reaction before while exercising! That bug spray is the only thing I can think it might be.

As for results, I crossed the line at 54:10, which isn’t a great number. I used to be able to walk a 5K faster than that. But it adds up to a 17-min mile (since the altered course was actually ~3.2 miles), and I did run about 15 mins of it, so I’m proud of that. It’s a baseline to improve, right? I came in 5th in the women’s 30-39 age bracket, which sounds kinda awesome and weird until you realize there were literally only five people in that bracket. Ha! I also got 62nd overall – out of 83 people. Heh.

Other than the hives and the heat/sun, I really enjoyed the event. It was nice to do something like this again. These 5ks always make me feel part of a community, especially the tiny ones, and it helps when they support a really good cause. This one was for Project Brave, which teaches kids in K-5th grade about healthy relationships as a way to help end domestic violence. “Make Kindness the Culture” is their slogan. It made me so happy to participate and contribute!

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September in Review

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Thistle

Okay. This was originally meant to be a rest-relaxation-back-to-normal kind of month, but on the 1st, we basically had our house explode again, and then Jason’s car exploded a few days later. (Full details here.) An insane roller coaster of stuff happened in the first week of the month, good news bad news good news bad news etc. We weren’t even sure if we’d be able to go on our cruise this month, and it was well beyond the time of even partial refunds. Thankfully vacation was a go (yay!). So there was some relaxation this month. But of course, we still had the rest of the fallout from house-explosion to deal with when we got home.

Goals
One of my yearly goals crossed off this month – participating in an official 5K. Yay! Otherwise, nothing new there. I did get to cross off some of my bucket list goals, though. Saw the Pacific Ocean finally, and visited two new-to-me states (Washington and California). I also crossed a few things off my 40×40 list.

(about to conquer San Francisco)

Health
Hahahah, nope. First two weeks focused on house/car explosions, then a bit over a week on vacation, and the last week of the month recovering. We had to eat out pretty much every night of the first two weeks, and then of course on the cruise there was constant food and desserts and drinks. So my food intake was dreadful this month. As for exercise, most was incidental instead of planned (like lugging books around the house during construction, walking around Seattle, or climbing 65 flights of stairs in San Francisco). I exercised most days (22), but very few of them were intentional exercise. Only 10 yoga, and of the 32 miles I walked, almost a third were on a single day in San Francisco. So it wasn’t really my best month in terms of health. I gained quite a bit in the half of the month, but was happy to maintain through my cruise and lose a couple pounds in the week since. I’m still up 3 lbs this month, though. Oh well.

Books
RIP month! I had some fun reads this month, mostly on audio, and of course a book that I’ve been anticipating for several years finally came out (Lethal White). Total: 5. Favorite: Dreadful Company? I think? There were many good ones this month!

Highlights of September
The cruise, obviously, and during that vacation, meeting Kristen from We Be Reading! Otherwise:

  • Ambrose got his driver’s license! First registered driver of my boys.
  • my first 5K since March 2016!
  • Jason got a small cost-of-living raise at work
  • having several nights of restful sleep without sleep aids!
  • The National Merit scores came out this month, and while Morrigan missed it by one point, he’s a National Commended Scholar, and he got the highest score in his entire high school. They’ll be honoring him at a ceremony next month.
  • Morrigan is now registered to vote and can do so after his birthday on Oct 18!

Coming up in October
We do still have more work to do from fallout from the house problems in September – landscaping the yard again, painting the guest bathroom, putting up trim and floor thresholds, that sort of thing – but none of it is urgent or crucial or immediate. We’re going to take our time with it all and not stretch ourselves thin like every month from May onwards. Also, we decided to use the ripped up yard to plant skeletons climbing out of the ground for Halloween. I mean, how many other years will we have the perfect yard for that??

Beyond that, please, please no more house crises. Instead, let us have rest, regular schedules, exercise, decent nutrition. Please. Morrigan’s birthday. Possibly Readathon if I have time. More RIP books. Halloween. Decent weather for a change. These are my wishes this October. They don’t seem too much to ask. Please?

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Sunday Coffee – Catching Up

Posted on September 30, 2018 by Thistle

Trying to catch my breath on this last day of the month. I’m leaving for a 5K shortly – my first 5K in 2.5 years! – so this will be brief and a bit scattered!

[Qualifier for the rest of this post: I’m setting aside the SCOTUS stuff, which I’m not going to discuss because just thinking about it makes me angry and anxious.]

It’s been a nice week this week.  The cats have been super-loving since we got home, especially Jojo, who basically won’t leave my side. I think they missed us! Ambrose passed his driver’s test and got his license, Laurence’s phone turned up after missing for three weeks, and the first real cool front of the season came through (temps in the 60s!!). On top of that, Jason got a cost-of-living raise at work. Yay!

Then there’s a personal health breakthrough from this week. Mid-week, I made a dietary change to cut out as much processed food as possible. Other than condiments (because I don’t want to make my own), I’m being very strict about the definition of processed – whole wheat pasta and plain white rice and even flour are considered processed here. I discovered back in 2012 that if the processed portion of my daily diet stayed under 20%, I had far fewer episodes of insomnia, but I’ve gotten away from that over the years. This change won’t get rid of insomnia completely, but  in the few days since I made it, I’ve been sleeping through the night without any sleep aids. This is pretty much a miracle for me and I hope it holds.

And that’s about all the time I’ve got left. Talk to y’all soon!

Posted in Personal, Wellness | Tagged | 3 Comments

Lethal White, by Robert Galbraith (audio)

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Thistle

One morning, a mentally disturbed young man stumbles into Cormoran Strike’s office. He tells a wild story about seeing a kid strangled when he was a little boy, but before Strike can get details, the man bolts away.

This is the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series. I’ve been anticipating this book for so long! I began to listen to the audiobook the day it released.

First, let me begin by saying that I only read the first book because Galbraith was revealed as the pseudonym of JK Rowling. I doubt I would have heard of the series in the first place otherwise, as they aren’t my normal kind of books. I enjoyed the first two books, though I had some issues with both of them. Then Career of Evil released a few years ago. Because of the long hold line at the library, I decided to give the audiobook a try. I couldn’t stop listening. The book was so engaging, and the issues that I had with the first two books were completely absent from this one. I went back and listened to the first two books again, and while not all the issues disappeared completely, they were definitely more engaging in audio format. So of course, I went straight into this one by audio.

Robert Glenister (the narrator) didn’t disappoint, though I will admit that Lethal White was not nearly as gripping, fast-paced, and engaging as Career of Evil. I listened to the book leisurely over a week, rather than charging though it in a day. Honestly, I was glad to have this more leisurely pace, as the book released while I was on vacation! At the same time, I felt that it was missing a little from earlier volumes. The writing/language was a bit stilted and kept coming to little halts in the pacing. I have no idea what the writing process was like, but it felt as if the author might have struggled a bit throughout. It didn’t flow nearly as well as any of the previous books in the series, and like in The Cuckoo’s Calling, there was a bit too much exposition in explaining the mystery’s solution at the end. Nothing felt as natural or organic.

Now, despite all this, I still really enjoyed the book. I won’t say it’s my favorite in the series, but I loved reading through both mystery and the character development throughout. It’s the relationships and personal touches that really make these books worth reading for me. With each volume, you get to know people better, and there are subtle – and sometimes abrupt – shifts in life circumstances that change the various interactions between characters. This helps keep the series interesting and not just a two-dimensional crime procedural.

I know I’ll reread this. I’ve already bought the physical book to join my library, and this is a series I’ve revisited several times. It might even be better on second read, when vacation isn’t distracting me!

Posted in 2018, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Running Part 2: Peak

Posted on September 26, 2018 by Thistle

In my last running post, I talked about how I got started running and how I made it to my first 5K. I became addicted to running after that. It wasn’t always fun – wasn’t usually fun – but I felt good and I was making progress. I was never going to be a fast runner, since I was born with crooked feet, but I got to where I was averaging about a 12-min mile most of the time. This is the story of how I got to my running peak, up to when I fell away from running.

In the summer of 2012, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture near the top of my right fibula (the smaller leg bone under the knee). The X-rays showed a lot of swelling around the bone, and my doctors estimated that I’d had the stress fracture for about nine months. !!! I can pretty much pinpoint the day it happened. I was jogging slowly down a hill in those same crap shoes that had caused my shin splints when I first attempted the C25K, and suddenly my leg went numb from the knee down. There was no pain or anything, and I walked the rest of the way to the car. I went home and sat down and did some icing. It took about four hours for the numbness to disappear. I didn’t think much more about it a the time, but I’ll bet that’s when the fracture occurred. I ended up having to stop all exercise in my lower body (even walking) for 12 weeks that summer.

Once I was finally able to run again that fall, I got better shoes, and I was much stronger. This is when my mile time dropped from 14 mins to 12 mins. I became addicted to 5Ks, where I was averaging about 35-37 mins. There were regular 5Ks, and fun ones like mud runs and color runs. There were causes to support, like the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio and the Rape Crisis Center. On some 5Ks, I walked – I actually walked one with a 14-min mile pace, the same as I used to run! – some I ran, and some I did with friends in a combination of walking and running. My family participated from time to time, especially Morrigan. This time period was my favorite time for running.

Early in 2012, my local team from Sparkpeople began training for an unofficial half-marathon to take place a year later, in Jan 2013. Every week we went out to walk distances that grew progressively larger. I learned something important about myself: Even at my smallest sizes and my fittest self, seven miles was about the limit for my legs and feet to feel okay afterwards. Anything more than that, I could do, but I suffered for it. I pushed on though, and I decided that January to make this a double event for me. I would run the first 10k of the half-marathon, then walk the rest. Since I’d never run more than 3.5 miles at a stretch, I took the event slowly, running my 10K with a mile pace of around 13:15/mile, and then I went on to walk the rest of the 13.1 mile half marathon. It was the longest I’d ever run nonstop or walked nonstop. It was amazing. (Also, the audio for The Chopin Manuscript is pretty much what kept me steady and loving that 10k run portion!)

(our half-Sparkathon group and support peeps and puppy)

The success in that last event pushed me to greater goals, and in the summer of 2013, I began training to run a half-marathon. Unfortunately, issues with my feet eventually caused me to quit training. I still ran for fun, and even managed one of the only two 5Ks I ever ran under an 11-min-mile pace (10:53 to be exact, so not much lower, but STILL!). I switched focus to strength training, and six months later, had abdominal surgery, which made running impossible for quite some time. Then we moved to Boston, and that was pretty much the end for years.

To be continued…

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Pacific Northwest Cruise – September 2018

Posted on September 24, 2018 by Thistle

Hey peeps! I’m home! Got a lot to catch up on, so I’m going to put all this in one post, and warn you all that it’s going to be very long. I’ve been trying to keep up with photos and such on facebook and Instagram, so some of this might be repeat. Otherwise, settle in with some coffee and let’s go!

Day 1 – Travel to Seattle
Despite all obstacles, Jason and I managed to organize everything in the house crisis to be ready to go on vacation. We sent the boys off to school and got a Lyft to the airport. The flights were a bit bumpy but we got a row to ourselves on the second one, which was nice. I bought The Hypnotist’s Love Story (Liane Moriarty) in the airport bookstore and spent my flight reading. Once in Seattle, we had an eventful Lyft through town during rush hour and finally found the “hotel” (which was actually an apartment complex with apartments as hotel rooms). Jason and I went out walking (we were about two blocks from the Pike Street Market) and ate at a brewery that was delicious. I had a Cuban sandwich that was divine, and Jason had a crab chowder that was also apparently divine. It was an excellent choice of restaurant. More walking around – saw the first ever Starbucks store! – and then we crashed out after a long day. Continue reading →

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The Hypnotist’s Love Story, by Liane Moriarty

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Thistle

Ellen, a hypnotherapist, thinks she’s finally found Mr. Right in Patrick. So when Patrick announces that they need to talk, her heart begins to break. He’s not breaking up with her, though – instead, he has a stalker that he needs her to know about. Ellen is fascinated even as she knows the situation should frighten her, especially as things escalate well beyond what she has imagined.

I grabbed this book in the airport bookstore, knowing that Moriarty’s writing tends to grip me and not let go. She has a somewhat spotty record with me (loved two, detested one, of her books), so I was hoping this was the right decision. And it was. I thoroughly enjoyed The Hypnotist’s Love Story. It was engaging, the characters were flawed and balanced people, the relationships were strained exactly right by various complications (even beyond the stalker). The book showed interesting insight into the mind of a stalker, and I learned some really interesting things about hypnotherapy (which isn’t like stage hypnotism). Throughout, I kept waiting to learn some awful secret that would make my stomach twist the way it did in The Husband’s Secret, but nothing like that happened. The “secrets,” if you could call them that, were simple psychological layers and personal (unnecessary) guilt, and the book was both hopeful and pleasant to read. Satisfying in every way. I’m happy I chose it for my travel companion.

Posted in 2018, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Conspiracy in Belgravia, by Sherry Thomas (audio)

Posted on September 14, 2018 by Thistle

Part 2 of this series, and this time Charlotte Holmes is looking into a mystery that involves her illegitimate half brother…

More fun. Other than a few language quirks – there was a bit too much Dickensian repetition of pithy jokes in the beginning – I enjoyed this second foray to Holmes’ world almost as much as the first. I think I do need a little break, though, which is good because the third book isn’t out yet. Just leaving this one as a mini-review since I don’t have much to say that I didn’t already say in A Study in Scarlet Women.

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