June 28th is both a sad and happy day in our family.  It is my grandfather’s birthday.  Last year on this day my brother had a strange experience.  You can see his blog about it on his myspace.  Well this year it was Mom’s turn for a strange experience. 

When Pop moved in with us 20 years ago he brought with him this old, large, pirate clock.  The clock never worked when he was living in our house and didn’t work for several years before.  He still had it hanging on his wall though, right above his recliner in his living room.  After he passed my father decided he wanted the clock because it reminded him of his father so much.  When they moved into their condo the clock went with him and it has actually become the piece that his entire bedroom has been decorated around.  Pirate stuff everywhere.  Mom just called me a few minutes ago and said that suddenly the clock is working.  In fact she said she first noticed it because it chimed and now it is keeping accurate time.  She is a little flipped out and I don’t blame her.  Maybe Pop really is trying to let us know that he is ok.  Love you too Pop! 

This morning it was in the mid 70s and the humidity was around 90% but I was convinced to get out there and do my run.  My heart rate ran a little higher, but I did get another successful speed training day under my belt.  I feel great!  I did have one small issue though.

When we were in Florida I had several run ins with avian creatures.  The one pictured in Apok’s blog nearly knocked me off my feet as we were walking through the Magic Kingdom.  Well now that I am home this has not changed. 

There are some warehouses near my house that have some really nice paved parking lots.  I try to spend as little time as possible on sidewalks when I ran because asphalt has a little more give and is easier on the knees.  So I make my usual turn and cut through the parking lot the first time with no trouble.  I loop around and head back through but this time someone is waiting for me.  I am used to have birds do fly-bys on my runs but this one had an different agenda.  This guy’s first fly-by seemed like he was aiming straight for my head.  I didn’t think anything of it at first but I could hear him squaking.  I looked up and he was right above my head looking down at me with a really pissed off look on his beak.  I tried to run from him and he stayed right with me.  My frist thought was the mace in my hand but I knew if I sprayed it up at the bird it was going to come back down in my face.  Not to mention it would probably kill the bird and I certainly didn’t want to do that.  I finally started sprinting away and a couple hundred yards later I lost him.  I  might need to re-route my run to go around the nest.

Speaking of mace.  I try to be neighborly as I go through the neighborhood.  Waving and saying “Hi” as I pass everyone by.  Only it has occurred to me recently that people may be looking at my greetings as threats.  I always run with mace in my hand and I keep it in my right hand since I am right-handed.  I also wave with this hand.  So when I wave to people and say “Hi” to them I am actually waving my mace at them.  They might not consider that such a friendly greeting, lol.  Oops.

Yesterday my eating was so bad.  I am taking today to detoxify and get back to normal.  I was on the elevator leaving after a 2 hour meeting and people on the elevator were talking about people jumping from buildings.  I didn’t think anything of it.  I was paying more attention to the wonderful smell wafting from the Domino’s pizza box the delivery guy next to me was holding.  I got off the elevator now craving pizza and headed to the car.  I made it about 2 blocks from my office building when I saw a body lying in the street.  It was covered with a sheet, but you could still see blood and still tell that it was a person.  Emergency vehicles were everywhere.  Now I understood why the people on the elevator were having such a morbid conversation.  So now I had pizza cravings and an image in my head I was having trouble shaking.

Got home and decided to spice up some rice instead of order pizza, but it didn’t hit the craving.  I kept searching for something that would and there was nothing to be found.  I should have bit the bullet and gotten a slice of pizza and a salad instead of trying to find something else to fight the craving with.  *smacks hand*  Another “lesson” for the books.  Moving on.

I decided to stop buying bottled water.  Instead I invested in some better quality water bottles that are dishwasher safe.  I am going to Reuse instead of Recycle.  I had been looking at Nalgene because they have bottles in pink and purple, but they were going to run me about $10 a piece.  Last night at BJs I found a 4-pack of Swiss Gear (makes of the Swiss Army Knife) bottles for just $9. 

For one thing I toilet papered a house for the first time ever this weekend.  Shhhh, it’s supposed to be a secret.  Let’s just keep it between you and me.  😉

In other news I finally got my new FIRM workouts.  Twice over.  The order I had placed before I found out I was getting the workouts for free never was canceled like I requested.  Turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I opened the one set to find part of the case was crushed and only 2 DVDs worked.  After a breif discussion with customer service they refunded me for the second set and asked me to open the other set to see if between the two I could come up with a complete set.  I was able to get all of the second set to work on my workout DVD player, so I was thrilled!

Of course Saturday morning I wake up and proceed to watch all of the workouts through so I could decide which one to do.  I chose Hi Def Sculpt with Annie.  This was Annie’s first workout where she was the lead instructor and she did an awesome job.  So awesome in fact that I got on Sunday more sore than I have been in a REALLY long time.  This prevented me from getting in my long run.

To make up for it I decided to move my long run to this morning.  Of course last night ended up being somewhat restless.  It was a combination of bad eating, being convinced I heard someone scream just before dozing off and a thunderstorm.  I got up with my alarm long enough to send a message to work telling them I was sleeping in.  I did sleep in till about 9 AM and then I jumped into my running clothes and ran out the door.

I got my full 7 miles in and I felt great.  I was still a little sore from HDS on Saturday, but the muscles relaxed after about a mile.  Of course I have felt like I could barely walk for the rest of the day.  :/  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.  I am planning on concentrating on the upper body by either dropping my weights for the lower body on Allie’s new workout or doing Jiggle Free Arms and the express edition of Cardio Overdrive with Allison.  Decisions, decisions.