Tired

Quite a week its been. We welcomed the arrival of miss Belle. I understand why they say this is good practice for kids, because I was up with her at 3:30, then up 5:30 for the day. She is finally getting it that peeps and poops is for outside. Not sure what my neighbors thought of me yelling "Yay Belle Poopie Time" at 5:30 but whatever! Will post pictures later.

As for training, it went really well this week. Of course I have been side tracked today and yesterday, but I have a team run tomorrow and a team ride on Sunday. I ventured out on the road for the first time with my clip shoes. After my accident in the kitchen, I was a bit nervous. I started out at the cemetary where my mom is. I figured I couldn't hurt anyone there (they are dead) and any of the blue hairs that were there would be driving slow enough. I practiced for a little bit. Clipping in and out of my shoes and I felt secure enough to head to the Arlington bike trail. Pretty good stuff.

Hoping everyone had a good week. TGIF!!!! If anyone is around, Heather is hosting a fundraiser Saturday night at Kitty O Shea's!
My fundraiser is next week and I am looking forward to getting everyone together and raising a whole bunch of money!!!

Jody And Belle

Just a guppy in a school of fish

I want to start this post with a favor. A good friend of the family Ally, is in need of some peace as she continues to fight her battle with MLD. MLD is a rare genetic disease that she was just diagnosed with last year. Only a few years younger than me, she has been through so much this passed year, as well as her family. Please think and pray for them as Ally continues this battle.

As for this weekend, I feel as though it was much longer than an average weekend. It began early Saturday morning as I made it over to Simmons College to meet my team for a swim. Little did I know that at the end we were going to simulate what it would be like when hundreds of people start the race together on the small beach at the lake. So that meant that we put about 15 people into a lane, the coach said go, and we went. You did not wait til the person in front of you had some distance. You did not care about who you were kicking. But you did make sure that your head was shielded at all times. Oh and you most certainly swallowed about a gallon of water. At least I did!! So all in all a pretty fun practice. After practice I went to a wedding shower and became quite nostalgic as I drove past all the charity runners doing their 20-miler. I laid on the horn for about 10 minutes showing my support to complete strangers. I came home from that and the birthday festivities began and did not end til the wee hours of the morning. The purple suit did make an appearance. After waking up early to begin todays duties we experienced another homeowners nightmare. Our sink pretty much fell out of the wall. The garbage disposal fell out with the pipes. Lets just say that we were covered in what looked like throw up. Due to my lack of sleep and immaturity, I just laughed hysterically as Brian tried to take care of it. Its not 2:40 and it seems to be under control and we are just drying out everything. Gotta go pick up Nana and Papa to head over to my dads for a 3:00 dinner. I think I am going to be late!!!

Have a great start of the week everyone!

Cause she's got HIGH HOPES

Okay first things first, I only need $115 dollars to meet my fundraising minimum!!! Come on people, who is going to be the one to put me over the minimum????

This week has gone really well with training. I swam twice so far and went over a mile both times. Managed to suck it up on the treadmill yesterday and ran a whopping 3 miles. But the good news is that I felt no pain in my knees. I am going to keep it slow and steady with the running so that I do not end up needing cortizone shots like last year.

So now that I am 3 days away from my 28th year I started to think about things. Now I was never one with a master plan, or an idea of what I thought I would be when I was this age. Who needs stress like that. I typically take each year for what it is, and try to learn as many lessons as possible to be a better person. I am thinking that by the time I turn 90 I will have gotten it. Anyways long story short, I have decided (afterall if we "think" we are going to do something it won't happen) that I am going to do a half ironman the year I turn 30. So yes, I have two years before that happens, but if I keep up my training after this triathlon then it should not be any harder than a marathon. I will look into it and see which events the TEAM participates in. There is a half ironman the same weekend as my triathlon in New Hampshire so maybe it will be that one. I just think that Hawaii sounds much better. As long as this does not interfere with the vacation that my girlfriends are planning for our 30 birthdays then I should be golden.

55 degrees and falling

Had a productive morning at the BSC in Lexington this morning. I am swimming a mile faster and faster each time. I am having an issue with my right knee in the water. My coach thinks it is the way that they taught us to kick. I never really used my legs too much swimming til now so I am going to have to keep an eye on that. It was nice to relax in the jacuzzi today after my swim. Its kind of like the calm before the storm. It is always weird though when older men, okay men of any age join you with only a thin layer of cloth on, which they call a speedo, I call a banana hammock.
You may be wondering about the title of this post. I came home today to the house being a chilly 55 degrees and falling. My fingers are actually cramping from being so cold. No idea but the heat will not work. There are some men working on the top floor here, and despite me asking 3 different times, in many ways, they do not seem to think that it was anything they did. We shall see about this one.
Going to retreat to a friends house, especially since I cannot watch Dancing With The Stars, because I broke Brian's plasma ( I didnt really but I am sure I am being blamed for it on some leve....). Good luck to Ian Ziering tonight, aka Steve from 90210!!!
BREAKING NEWS: Brian just got home and the heat is back on. Apparently our oil burner was turned to off.....interesting.
Happy Monday!

It Ain't easy Being Green

Well due to practice being cancelled for Saturday, and having worked out every day last week I decided to make the executive call and get some stuff done around the house, in preparation of Belle coming soon!!

Yesterday was Patty's wedding, which was out of control fun. Halfway through the wedding a group of Irish step dancers showed up and clogged their way around the dance floor. While I behaved myself, most around me did not, so I was mighty entertained. These are some things that I witnessed:

Two Greek men trying to bartend for about 300 people.

A friend whose name rhymes with Ken lip syncing and doing the choreographed dance to N-Sync's BYE BYE BYE, then asking the boys if they would go see JT with him.

A piece of the ceiling falling on someones head.

Someone convincing me that Patty and Matt hired midgets to be leprechauns at the reception(way too gullible).

Well I have to go make a dent in that dirt cake. Going for a nice long swim tomorrow morning to start the week off.

I just practiced making a dirt cake for the first time. My mom used to make me one for my birthday each year. I was inspired to try it since my bday is coming up.

Its a Nor-Eastah!!!

On this eve of St. Paddy's Day, I look out the window to the falling snow and think "THANK GOD I DON'T HAVE TO RUN TOMORROW!" My team was supposed to get together for a run in the morning, and I was getting ready to go out and pretend that I was ready for the 5-6 miles that we were supposed to run. I have not exactly been too good about running because my knees are still mad at me about the last 4 marathons. Now I can just go to the gym and get back on the treadmill.

This week was a success health and physical wise. Monday was a lifting day, Tuesday I swam a mile in the morning before work. Wednesday I "ran" and I use that term loosely. I ventured out to "the fells" as the medford folk call it. It is a large wooded area that is in Medfore and Winchester. It is pretty impressive with tons of trains, and lots of people mountain biking. It will be nice on the knees because it is all dirt paths. However the other day it was pretty muddy so I just kept sinking. Thursday I went to the gym to do some spinning, and ended up in a small room with 3 seventy year olds that were playing chess and ping pong. It was rather weird and I kept fearing a fall off of the bike, because the men were playing Forrest Gump style and kept randomly screaming out. Anyways it was back to the pool this morning for a mile swim. It took be about 38 minutes to do a mile. I have no idea if that is good or not, but I just started working on my speed. It took me a while this morning to get into the groove, but that could have been due to the guy thrashing beside me in my lane. I think he was attempting the butterfly stroke, pretty strange. I try not to judge, but those who wear speedos for fun scare me.

Well I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Enjoy your St. Paddy's Day, and be safe! I'll be at Patty's wedding, hopefully to enjoy some cocktails and maybe pretend that I am an Irish step dancer.

Can't help but smile

I just could not resist!

Okay so I am sort of obsessed, but soon enough it will be pups

and neices to battle it out for cuteness.

The BELLE of the ball

Well I know this site was meant for updating my triathlon progress, and I will do that, however we have some exciting news. We would like to introduce the new four legged member of the family, Belle. Bri and I went to Quincy today to a breeder and although I had no idea which one to get, Bri instantly fell for the black cocker spaniel with "brown socks" as he put it. She is a sweetie, and was relatively chill compared to her 7 brothers and sisters who were all attacking one another. We will be taking her home in about three weeks or so. I am trying to be a good dog owner and reading up on as much puppy info as possible.

Okay back to training. I had a great practice Saturday morning. We had to jump into a freezing pool at 8:30, and we were videotaped on our first lap underwater. We swam for about two hours and I am really getting a hang of all the drills. After practice my coach pulled each one of us aside to go over the tape (luckily they could not find a TV for the whole team to watch). All in all I am doing very well with keeping my head down and where my arms should be and stuff, so hopefully this might be my strongest leg of the event. Lord knows I have not been running much! That will come with time i'm sure.

Okay thats all for this post, a little bird told me baby Elizabeth is on her way. She must miss her auntie because I was with her all day yesterday. By the way, major props to all the moms and dads out there, I was EXHAUSTED after a day with her, and she barely moves.

Love to all!

Back on Track

Well I luckily made it to the Dr this week before my cold turned into a sinus infection. It was definately a rough week, but luckily I feel almost back to normal, well as close to normal as I can get. I am heading out for a lovely Buonomo Family Gathering. Should be some fun, with some relatives I have not seen in quite some time, and of course BABY ELIZABETH!!!
Not going to go too crazy because I have swimming tomorrow morning, and hopefully the start of a healthy and exercise filled week!
Oh and we are checking out puppies on Sunday!
I will have lots of pictures to share this weekend!

Just For Today

Just for today,
I will give thanks for my many blessings.
Just for today,
I will not worry.
Just for today,
I will not be angry.
Just for today,
I will do my work honestly.
Just for today,
I will be kind to my neighbor
and every living thing.
So I wanted to share my experience yesterday during my Reiki training. The above are the reiki principles. They sure did come in handy today when I was getting swung at by a kid, and later flipped off by someone who thought I was cutting them off ( like how I spun that one?).
I managed to take my sick self to the training with my old supervisor, PearlAn. It was an amazing experience, and the people that I shared the class with had some pretty amazing stories and experiences to share. Makes me really believe that this can help people. I practiced on Brian last night, for now he can be my guinea pig. I had some pretty wild dreams last night, but that was probably due to the dayquil that I took.
Anyways after hardly any sleep, I managed to get up at 5 and start my day off at spinning class. I was a sight with my red nose, tissue box, and plenty of sneezes. Hopefully I can do some energy healing on myself and get rid of this nasty cold, cause I really need to get some swimming in.
I'm kind of glad that I got kicked out of acupuncture because now I do not feel bad about treating myself to my favorite candy ever that is only around during Easter!

Runny

Well it was a pretty productive week for me all in all, but perhaps too productive because I woke up with quite a cold (I guess I can thank the kids for this one!). Needless to say I did not think that heading to the pool to infect my teammates was a good idea, so instead I plopped down in front of out new plasma and watched a few hours of 90210. I healed pretty well from my biking accident last week, and managed to work out every day last week. I have been trying to make it to the gym in the mornings before work. This allows me to keep up with my second and third jobs, as well as acupuncture. Speaking of acupuncture, I was kicked out. Yes, it is possible. I was put on a treatment plan of twice a week for 6 months. At $70 a pop, this is just not possible. As I sat there and explained that while I understood why it would be good for me, that I just could not pick up anymore extra jobs to be able to pay for it. It was rather uncomfortable, and while I thought I would still be able to go once every few weeks, they did not feel that was a good idea. So I am on the market for a new acupuncturist. My body seemed to react to it so I will try it out. On to my next venture...Reiki. I am taking a Reiki class tomorrow. My old supervisor is a Reiki Master and owns her own holistic center (www.theselfcenter.com). Reiki is all about energy healing. My old neighbor from Waltham Trish, learned Reiki when her son was sick. When my mother was sick, she would come over and help her to relax by doing Reiki every once in a while. I am learning and will hopefully be effective at helping people to be more balanced. I am not sure how long it will take me to be comfortable enough to do this on others, but I already have lots of volunteers! Well that is it for me, I am going to milk this cold and sit in front of the television all day. Hoping that I can make it to the pool tomorrow to get my swim in. Have a great weekend everyone!