I'ts Been One Of Those Weeks!!!!

I have had a rough week.

The upper respiratory thing I picked up has been KICKING MY BUTT all over town. There were many days where I had no strength and spent the majority of the time either in bed or being a vegetable on the couch. Fevers, stuffy head, chest congestion...you name it, I had it.

Now, 10 days later, I am starting to feel somewhat human again!

Then there's my budget. The company I work for has postponed our raises YET AGAIN! At this point, a full 2 years will have passed since our last raise cycle. What's really funny is that, the owner of the company always posts these memos talking about how "great the raises will be compared to the rest of the industry", which is laughable, b/c we are at the LOW END of the salary scale and in the 8yrs I've been here, we have never EVER had an annual raise. It's usually 15-18months in between.....24-30 during a rough year.

And b/c of not getting my raise (and having overtime cut), I am unable to do the auto maintainance I need. My car needs tires and is leaking coolant. So I basically am crossing my fingers each time I get behind the wheel, praying and hoping that I don't blow a tire or my motor.

My guinea pig, Phantom, died on Sunday. Apparently she had not been eating for awhile but I never noticed! When I weighed her, she had lost 1lb (1/3 of her body weight. NOT GOOD). I feel like such a BAD MOMMY and the guilt is making my mourning all that much worse. If I had noticed this a week ago, I may have been able to get her to the vet and get her on some meds as well as have them show me how to feed her by hand. I am sick to my stomach about it.

And last, but certainly not least, the BOYFRIEND. He never calls. When I break down and call him, he will chat with me without any problems, but he certainly doesn't act like he misses me at all. I am so sick and tired of being taken for granted. I am sick and tired of him taking his issues with his ex out on ME. I have been waiting patiently (ok...not so patiently) for him to move past his past but it doesn't seem to be in the damn cards. I guess I should start shopping around for a new one, but really, my heart just isn't ready for that.

On a good note...I received another donation for my 3 Day Walk today. I signed up to do a Relay For Life event with my best friend and her daughter in May. I have scheduled a training walk for this Friday evening. That should snap me out of my funk a little bit. Let's hope that the weekend brings better things!!!

First Training Walk!!!

Not only did I sign up for the 2008 3 Day Walk immediately after completing the 2007 event....I also signed up to be a Training Walk Leader. I had gone on some training walks last year and found that the tidbits of information I received from the leaders I met were invaluable in helping me to prepare. I wanted to ne able to extend that knowledge to others.

This past Sunday, I held my FIRST OFFICIAL TRAINING WALK!!!!

I held it at Neshaminy State Park. I chose this location for multiple reasons. A) close to my house. B) combination of paved and "off road" surfaces. C) path goes in a "loop", which means that I simply repeat the path multiple times to reach the desired mileage (and people can drop out after completing one circuit if they don't feel up to going the full distance).

The weather was generous this weekend. I was fortunate to have dry weather for both my trip to NYC on Saturday as well as my walk. There was a bit of chill in the air, enhanced by the wind. But once we got moving, our bodies warmed up nicely.

I met 3 ladies on this walk: Mickey, Pam, and Sam. All of them are 3 Day "virgins", so I was excited to be able to pass along some of my enthusiasm for the event to them. They peppered me with lots of questions and I feel relatively confident that I was able to provide sensible and informative answers. We all had similar personalities, so there were no awkward moments along the walk.

Pam and Sam are sisters. Since I am not great at putting names to faces, I told them that I would simply combine their names and refer to them as the SPAM Sisters! They loved it so much that they are considering making it their official team name!!!

We logged in 3.2 miles, which brings my total of walking for the weekend to something around 6.5 miles. It was a great experience, which simply cemented my decision to become a Training Walk Leader.

The only downfall is that I woke up Monday with a killer upper respiratory infection and it is putting a crimp in my workout plans this week. As much as I want to get to the gym for some cross training, I know from personal experience that if I force myself to go, I will make myself sicker (and end up missing an additional week). So it's lots of green tea, oj, echinacea, and sleep for me this week.