Vlog: Shopping!

Yesterday I was on my own... so I went SHOPPING! I mainly went out to find some puzzles, go to Aldi (which I did do but didn't recap in my vlog), and go to Kohl's to spend a gift card. I ended up at Target too, which is strange because I don't really ever go there. But I FOUND THE PERFECT ROMPER!!!! That's right. At a store I never go to, who's clothes never really fit me. How about that?

Here's what I bought on my shopping adventures!

And below are pictures of some outfits with the pants I showed in the vlog.

The suede-y part...

And, the PERFECT romper!

I know I look high, just ignore that!

I hope you're having and awesome Sunday! If you're reading this before noon, I'm probably still sleeping. I had to pick Paul up from the airport last night, and due to his flight being delayed, we didn't get home until almost 1am!

Are you a Target fanatic?
What's your favorite thing I bought?
I promise I will get better at vlogging!

Weekly Workouts

I ran 28 miles this week.
I took 1 tap class.
I lifted twice.
I had PT twice.
Go me.

Saturday- 6 neighborhood miles. It was chilly and rainy, but I got it done.

Sunday- Fishing/running date @ Pinchot Park! I ran 6 miles. Some was on road and some was on trail. My ITB felt weak so it was a bummer.

Monday- 6 neighborhood miles. I was a little faster than normal on this run, which made me feel good. I have been having sort of a complex because my paces are pretty slow these days... but what do I expect? I don't do speed work and I am often pretty tired during the week. Maybe this summer will be a good time to try to get some pep back in my step.

Tuesday- 6 more neighborhood miles. I'm going to be honest with you. The area of my leg where the pinched nerve is making itself known... I felt it. I am feeling pressure. Sometimes it's hard to feel because this week my ITB is acting up too. It's hard to make sense of all these FEELINGS. But it is there. I called a Sports Medicine/PT place recommended by my friend who is the PE teacher at my school.

Wednesday- Lifting chest @ home. I woke up a little early so I was able to take my time... but I didn't want to take my time. Chest is easier for me lift than back so I just plowed through and got 'er done. Then I went to PT, where I learned to foam roll and did some exercises to help my ITB and my pinched nerve.

Thursday- 4 miles. My PT told me to do my foam rolling routine and then run 4 miles to see how it felt. My ITB felt the normal weakness it feels when it flares up. I had no awareness in the numb spot of my leg. That's good. Halfway through the day, I got a severe pain in my lower shin. WTF!? I AM FALLING APART.

Friday- Lifting back @ home. Then PT. I had to get up super duper early because PT was before work. But honestly I'd rather go to PT at the butt crack of dawn than later in the day. He showed me a BUNCH of exercises and they were HARD... mostly because I had already lifted that day. Maybe I should rethink lifting before PT. But I am excited to go to the gym and try my new exercises. I'll need the cable machines and TRX as well. And then of course some things I can do without equipment. I'll have to do a post of what PT exercises I do. Maybe a Vlog... hmmm!

Well, how did your workouts go this week?
Do you foam roll before or after you run?
What about stretching? What stretches do you like?

Friday 5!

Hey all! I am linking up with Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness for Friday 5 2.0!

Last week I was going to share 5 highlights from the week, but I didn't feel like anything good happened! Meranda informed me that awesome things happen every day, you just have to look for them. So I'm taking her advice.

This week, I am sharing 5 highlights! Some days I had to look pretty hard, other days I didn't.

Thanks for making me be more positive, Meranda!

1. On Monday, I had enough time to set up my music room for the next day. The fourth graders are learning to play the ukulele!

2. Paul bought jumbo Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies at the grocery store, so I have been eating them for dessert this week. They are just as good as I remember them being! My mom used to put them in my lunch when I was a kid. Not the jumbo kind, the regular kind. 'Merica!

 3. Do your pets have favorite places to sleep? Ours do. And they are such creatures of habit... which is why I was surprised to see that Jelly is taking a liking to sleeping on the bar stools at our kitchen counter. On Tuesday morning, he stole my spot when I went to the bathroom. When I got back from my run, he was still there. BABY!

Chicky leg!

After 2 years, Christmas finally discovered the top level of the cat condo!

4. Remember how our musical was cancelled last week? Well we FINALLY got to perform and it went really well. Here's some pics from the faculty number because I don't like to share pictures of students on my blog!

Yes, Mr. Houtz jumped off the stage.

Cheers to a great show!!!

5. As I mentioned yesterday, I started seeing a physical therapist who wants to fix my pinched nerve, fix my ITB and get my left side just as strong as my right side, and get me back to running strong and LIFTING lower body! I am hopeful and excited.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell me a highlight from your week!

I'm going to Physical Therapy!

This past week my ITB had been bugging me for the millionth time. I started to feel an awareness at my pinched nerve when I was running and NSAIDs didn't seem to make it better. I was just starting to get really frustrated with my running because it seems like I have just been plodding along lately and I know why... my body didn't feel strong.

On Tuesday afternoon, after scaring myself from googling "pinched nerve", I decided to call someone with experience in sports medicine and physical therapy. I didn't just want to wait around for my pinched nerve to go away, like my PCP suggested. What if I was doing something wrong to cause the nerve to be pinched? What if running was going to prevent it from going away? I wanted someone to tell me:

1. Exactly what is wrong with my leg and why it is happening.
2. How to fix it.
3. How to prevent it from happening again.

Quite a tall order, right?

My friend who is a phys ed teacher at my school recommended a PT who has a practice in Mechanicsburg. I trust my friend so I called the place up. My PCP faxed over a script and baddabing-baddaboom, I had an appointment the very next day at 9am!

I've had experience with quite a few PTs. I even wrote a post called Physical Therapy Sucks when I had an experience with a bad PT. (I still get hate comments on that post but I'm not taking it down because it's how I was feeling at the time!) My point is, I can tell when I am working with someone who is very knowledgeable and wants to help me.

I am very hopeful about the PT I am seeing in Mechanicsburg. He did an hour long assessment on me and then worked in the gym with me for 45 minutes. He did the galveston technique on me, taught me how to foam roll correctly, gave me some exercises to help mobility in my thoracic spine (I think!?), and applied KT tape.

As far as foam rolling, he has me doing my calves, hammys, ITB, quads/hips, and back. It is quite the upper body workout because I'm not supposed to put all of my weight on the foam roller. The PT exercises he showed me were for my back, but they also demonstrated to me that my left leg is just so much more weak than my right. Maybe it's from surgery? Maybe it's from my ITB? Who knows. But I have known this for awhile. I just never thought I could do anything about it.

I almost wanted to cry when he told me he wants me running strong again and wants me to be able to go back to the gym and do lunges and squats like I used to. It's been so long since I lifted lower body. It's hard to believe that I may be able to do it someday.

I have three more appointments set up, so hopefully things continue to go well. I've got the crazy KT tape on, which of course sparks lots of conversations with my students. Let's just say they all know what nerves do now!

My homework for tomorrow (well, today) is to run three miles to see how my ITB and the numbness feels. I'm supposed to stop at 3 miles even if it feels great. Before I run, I'm to do my foam rolling routine. It's so weird, I'm used to foam rolling after a run.

I'm not sure I've ever been excited to go to PT, but I am excited. I hope it goes well. I'll keep you posted!

Have you ever been excited for physical therapy?

Hi, my name's Megan and I am weird!

As many of you probably know, I suffer from misophonia!

It seems like everyone suffers from misophonia to some extent. I know I'm much more sensitive to mouth, nose, and throat noises than Paul is. But on the other hand, he still doesn't want to sit next to me while I crunch on an apple!

My misophonia is more prominent if the person making the mouth noise is close to me. Unfortunately, Paul is never going to be able to chew gum in my presence. I CANNOT TAKE IT.

Most of the time, I shudder when someone near me gets out a piece of gum. But I'm going to tell you something pretty strange... I have a couple friends or acquaintances who I actually LIKE hearing chew gum. I know, it is absolutely crazy. But there is a tiny handful of people who when they chew gum, I freaking love it.

I know, I am so weird.

No, I won't tell you who these people are. I can't think of a creepier thing to tell someone!

Do you have misophonia?
What if I told you I liked the sound of you chewing gum?

The Musical That Didn't Happen...

Last week was musical week, which is always the most stressful time of year for me. My 3rd and 4th graders rehearsed all week and were to perform two shows. One show was an assembly during the school day for the rest of the students and teachers in our building. The other show was to happen in the evening during our Open House. The students were SO EXCITED! Parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles... they were all coming to see their student perform!

I was excited for our Thursday night show for two reasons. First, I was excited for the kids to show their families their performance. Second, I was excited for the whole thing to be OVER so the stress would disappear. I was counting down the hours...

On Thursday, Paul and I arrived at the school a little before 5:30. At 5:30 sharp, the doors opened. Parents went to the gym to grab a seat for the show and students headed to their classrooms to line up in their positions.

Ten minutes later, we evacuated. Something was wrong with the HVAC system and there was smoke coming out of two of the heaters!

Everyone flowed into the parking lot. Parents were coming up to me and asking if they were still going to perform the show. I didn't have any answers for them as I'm not the one who makes those decisions.

Fire trucks from three different towns came. We waited outside for about 45 minutes until the principal announced that the show and Open House was cancelled for the night but it would be rescheduled.

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The stress is not over! We have to go through this all over again on Thursday! I'm really glad they rescheduled but I wish we just could have performed the show the night we were supposed to.

No matter how stressful these past few days were, I have to say I work with the best people! They are all there to support me whether it's by performing in the show, helping get kids on and off the stage, or giving me flowers. I couldn't work with a better staff!

My flowers from the staff.

That night I went home and ate cheese right off the block. 

Did you ever have to evacuate your workplace?
What about when you were in school? Any emergency evacuations?

Weekend Wrap Up!

Happy Monday!

After a very tiring week, I had a pretty tiring weekend too. But it was fun. Here's what we were up to!

After quite an eventful week, the thing I hoped for the most was to wake up in the morning with no headache or sore throat and hopefully feeling refreshed. Refreshed I was not, but my headache was gone. Instead of a sore throat I had that scratchy voice that's good for singing jazz songs.

I ran 4 miles and my adductor felt good so I stopped before I pushed my luck. Then I did some core stuff after. My hair is getting so long that it is just RIDICULOUS when I wake up in the morning...

Work was stressful. Let's leave it at that!

I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon and got some good news about the nerve problem in my leg. The doctor thinks it's probably a pinched nerve that will go away on it's on.

After work Paul and I had a meeting with a field consultant from Solar City. We are going through the process of getting solar panels for our home! We are so excited and I can't wait to tell you more about it when I have time to write more!

Then we headed to our cousin's house for game night! Steph and Ken are fun people, I won't know why we don't hang out more often!? (Okay, I know why, life is busy!) We played Code Names and Catch Phrase.

On the way home, we were dying for a milkshake. It was really late- after 1:00am. We drove by three McDonald's but none of them were open. What the heck!? I thought McDonald's was open 24 hours. We were bummed.

Since we were up so late on Friday night, we were quite alarmed when someone pounded on our door at 7:45am. Who knocks on doors that early!?

LOWES! OUR NEW WASHER ARRIVED!

Do you love the carpet in our basement?

I went back to bed and Paul facilitated the guys moving our new washer in and our old washer out. Apparently, this washer is only going to cost $36 a year to operate and uses a lot less water than our old washer. We might get a new dryer too but first we're going to try a wash line. We already hang a lot of stuff in the house but want to see if we'd be able to hang it all provided we had the room.

I snapped these pics of me and Chrissy. He woke me up with his cuddles!

When I got up, I headed straight over to Randy and Michael's house to play with their little Bitty Bot while they were on vacation. She was so lovey and ready to PLAY.

Then I went for a 6 miler. My adductor felt absolutely perfect the whole time, which made me happy!

That afternoon, I hung out with my friend JK-L. We gabbed and gabbed and gabbed. Boy have I missed her!

That evening, Paul and I went to his parent's house for a delayed Easter dinner of ham, mac and cheese, baked beans, yams, and brussel sprouts. Paul's dad is a really good cook, so the food was delicious, as usual!

I got to play with Swipey!

We played Code Names and laughed and laughed!

On the way home, we swung by Bitty Bot to check on her again. She was ready to play.

That morning, I did one last check on Bitty Bot. She purred the whole time I was there.

Then I picked up Paul and we went to Pinchot Park for a fishing/running date. I did 6 miles. Paul didn't catch anything, but the kid beside him did.

When we got home, Solar City was at our house to take pictures and gather some information about our roof. Now we wait to hear from their engineers so we know the next step!

The rest of Sunday was spent getting ready for the week ahead, blogging, and relaxing. It was a busy weekend and I just wanted to chill.

Tell me something fun you did this weekend!
What's your favorite party game to play?