I am festively plump

It's been quite the holiday season and this is what it's been full of:

1) Food

2) Booze

3) one 8k run in the Saguenay (pretty region of Quebec) where I spent Christmas with friends, almost twisted my ankle twice in the snow!

4) Food

5) Guitar Hero

6) Friends & family

7) Booze

8) Films

9) one 5k run in my not as pretty but cool neighbourhood

10) Sleep

11) Birthday cake ... yes, I have entered a new decade ... surrounded by friends, food, booze, and love ... Here we have DG, Turtleboy, DC and Naynay.

Turtleboy coined the best phrase I've heard in a long while to describe my present non-training body ... "festively plump" ... but heck, he's seen me at the peak of my Ironman training.

Drat, my body has gone to sod and I've got nine months left to train for Ironman Louisville!

Falling through the cracks of life ...

I've almost given up on training ... like, is it worth it, keeping a blog?

Just kidding ...

But somewhere inbetween heavy snowstorms, wickedly bad traffic, shovelling out my car too many times, Christmas shopping, physio and osteopath appointments, wicked headaches, full-time work, and two auditions, I haven't been able to fit in any training this week.

Oops, there was that 4.5 k to and from my physiotherapist's office to avoid having to move my car needlessly ... hmm.

But besides that, nada. I had planned to go to the pool tonight but the tow truck signalling that snow removal was to commence on my street pulled me out the door a little earlier than planned, so I decided to do my holiday grocery shopping.

Bad idea.

By the time I got to the pool to try to squeeze in a half hour swim, there was no parking to be had! Snow removal there too meant that there were less parking spots available and I didn't feel like circling like a vulture. So Plan B was the pool closer to my house with only one lane (no fast lane) since there was a parking lot.

But of course, there's no use finding a parking spot if the pool is closed.

Alright, back to the house, unload and put away the groceries, blah blah blah on the phone about a ** super top secret project ** that I will announce very soon here ... then finally returning a few of my many months' worth of e-mails, laundry and lo and behold!

Even Plan C, a quick run or spin on Mr. SB, my stationary bike, had fallen through the cracks of my life ...

But hey, there's always January with New Year's resolutions ;-) I'll most definitely need them ... the Christmas flab started a few weeks ago. Something about cold weather, lots of snow and shorter days that makes me want to eat ... and sleep ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

The roads are now clear ...

... and I will be on my way to Toronto to see my mom, who has stabilized in the hospital. This is a particularly scary drive for me because of my past car accident and also because of the road conditions. I'm just happy that it stopped snowing and it's warmer, which will hopefully mean less ice.

My mom has stablized and the head scan showed no signs of cancer or other in her brain. Thank God. She is now on blood thinners to deal with the clots and her morale has brightened, especially knowing the results of the scan. Though it is evident that her cancer has deteriorated, I am praying that she still hold onto life because selfishly, I still need my mother and the kids still need their grandmother. Besides that, we have plans to bring in the New Year with her.

Yesterday, I managed 56 laps in the pool, or 1400 m. Not where I need to be but it's a start. And it was wonderfully therapeutic.

Swimming in a pool of tears

Tonight, my cousin called me. He had taken my mother to the hospital. She had blacked out and hit her face. The hospital thinks it's a blood clot due to the spreading cancer and she's being given tests. She's been suffering from headaches for months now.

I am afraid to know what this may mean.

For two years now, since my mother's diagnosis of cancer, I have been putting aside having to deal with "losing her" ... "it's not going to happen 'til later" ... "it's not going to happen 'til later" ...

Tonight, I felt for the first time that "later" has caught up with me. And I am so filled with grief, I don't ever think the tears will stop.

No one is ever ready to lose someone they love. And especially not me now, what with Christmas and my birthday and New Year's just around the corner ... Me and the kids and the rest of the family still have some celebrating to do with my mom ...

I was supposed to swim tonight and wondered if the pool water would wash away my tears and distract me as I focused on technique. I nixed the idea and figured I didn't want to drown. Second choice was getting on my stationary bike, the infamous Mr. SB for those who have been reading my blog from the beginning ... but Mr. SB's dumb-founded look at my teary eyes told me instantly that he didn't know how to react to such great sadness.

I figured it best to turn to friends ... Thank you all for your hugs and support and love. Please say a prayer for my mother to help her get through this "hump". We've got a big New Year's party planned and we need her to be there ...

The View from My House

We've had a lot of snow recently ... about 35cm or so. Enough to want to call it a "Snow Day" like when we were kids and schools closed. I'd love not to go into work and just do nothing all day long, well maybe train and watch some flicks on the tube too.

This morning, I got up early, around 6am and the snow had stopped. DG told me he's never seen "igloos" before (cars completely buried in snow) ... well, he's never lived in the city centre before either.


Not much training since last week. Just two swim sessions. Lots of eating sessions ... it's that time of year again though ... sigh.

One good thing about tonight's swim was getting across the pool easily enough in only 17 strokes. I even tried breathing every five strokes as well just to see if it would add efficiency to my stroke and with some practice, I think it might. I had to concentrate real hard NOT to breathe every three strokes. I definitely think I'm much faster than I was last summer or maybe I haven't been swimming enough to remember ...

Been too busy recently to get more training in ... I landed another role in another play recently and had a rehearsal and public reading. I hope this play "The Source" goes to stage ... it'll be fun! It's based on a philosophical book called "The Magic of Unknowing" and it sparked a lot of interesting discussion after the rehearsal and the reading.

As I've gotten older, I've realised that the more I know, the more I realise I don't know ... which is cool in an interesting way ... excites me to think of all that is still to discover!