Hanging in Jersey

Tis the week of sickness and throwing out of backs.

I ended up having to take it easy last Sunday - because while I was busy shovelling lunch down my throat, I managed to throw out my lower back. Yes, that's right. Apparently I eat with such gusto, my body can't handle it. So last Sunday was spent babying my way-getting-old body. Loads o' fun.

I woke up on Monday and was still incredibly achy, but decided to go ahead and work out anyway. I took a load of laundry down also, and threw that in the washer while I worked out. I felt a lot better when I was done, still creaky but moving around much better than before. Afterwards, I headed out and got my roots done. My hair looks so much better - he fixed my (unintentional) ombre hair, and trimmed it up - lurve it! After my hair, it was back to the bar to down a few beers and eat some nachos for lunch. I sat at the bar, and eavesdropped on conversations around me, and just generally enjoyed having absolutely nothing to do.

I stopped on the way home from the bar and got some gummy bears, and then treated myself to an afternoon of bad reality TV and sugar. And some napping. All in all, one of the best days I've had in awhile. I also realized that if I had won that crazy powerball lottery, basically the rest of my life would look like last Monday did. Sigh. Perfect day.

On Tuesday it was back to work. Which is insane right now. Blondie was working crazy hours too last week - almost 60 hours for him in 5 days. Wednesday I woke up and felt a bad cold / sinus thing coming on - I powered through Wednesday and Thursday but felt crappy both days. We ended up doing a group lunch on Thursday which was nice, but I felt weird about being away from work with how much I have left to do for my project.

Thursday night my bar friends texted, so I drug my increasingly sick butt to the bar to meet up with them for a few, and get caught up on each other's week. I decided my body needed alcohol to kill the germs, so it was straight into a bunch of scotch. Blondie texted around 8:30 pm and headed over to meet us for a bit. Afterwards, we went out for mexican and just enjoyed our evening.

Friday, if I had to give it a 1 word description, would be "Pbbbbbbbttttt". I went into work just feeling horrid - in addition to the cold / sinus which was in full on agony, I had been sleeping in a funny position because of my lower back and had thrown out my neck. My boss stopped by my office about an hour after I got to work, to lay 2 pieces of news on me - one was that I had been put on a committee that requires me back in SF in January; the other was I was being sent home sick. I had only gone in because I had a ton of meetings, but she helped me pawn them off on other people, and then by 11:30, I was home, in bed, feeling miserable. And pissed off about the committee.

I passed the day watching TV off of netflix, blowing my nose, and trying desperately to get my neck to stop hurting (literally, this is all I did all day - Blondie didn't get home from work until almost 1 am, so until almost 1 am, this is what I did). If I had to give myself a 3 word description on Friday, it would've been "barrel of fun". Saturday was more of the same - just trying to get better.

Then came Sunday - our bartender lives in Jersey, and he is a local at a bar there and had been asking the "bar crew" to come over to visit him on a Sunday to watch football and hang at his local. We decided to make the trek on Sunday. Blondie and I were a last minute decision b/c of how crappy I was feeling, but decided 20 mins before we had to leave to catch the bus to go.

5 of us walked up to Port Authority and caught a transit bus over into Jersey to our bartender's bar (it was about a 30-40 min ride). And we had a blast. I kept laughing because I felt like "wow, who does this? Takes a bus out of the city to go to a bar?" But our bartender was so happy to see us, and it was such a fun day. Everyone was in great moods, and the Jets actually decided to win a game. Beer was flowing, the bar tab was cheap, and it was great seeing everyone in a different location. Partying in Jersey? Absolutely.

We got home last night around 5:30 pm (we had gone over at 10:45 am), and I managed to stay up for 45 minutes, before crashing for the night at 6:15. And it was exactly what I needed, as I feel about 80% back to normal today from my head cold. My neck is still rotten, but everything else is on the mend.

Plans for this week - leaving work early on Wednesday as my holiday party is then, early day on Friday as we're doing a holiday swap in the office, possible trivia on Thursday, and good friend from TX landing on Friday night. Next week is my immediate office group party, before leaving for the Land of Cheese for a few days. Then it's NYE and Blondie's bro is visiting for a week. Then it's back to SF with a possible stop in Spokane to visit my cray cray aunt and uncle.

Workouts were not great - due to cold and neck, it was a struggle
Sunday: 40 mins on Precor, 2 min level 6, 2 min level 11; 5 min cooldown; 10 mins on treadmill - 6 mins running at 5.5 mph, 4 mins walking at 4.1 mph.
Monday: Bunch of weights, 20 mins walking on treadmill at 3.2 mph up 8% grade hill
Tuesday: rest day
Wednesday: 30 mins walking on treadmill - 2 mins 4.1 mph on 5% grade hill; 2 mins 4.1 mph on 0% grade hill; 5 min cooldown
Thurs-Today: Nothing
Tomorrow: Something - I promise.

--K