Finding Shelter in the Storm!

The last couple weeks, I have been much more active.  I also had an interesting weekend this weekend and said goodbye to some friends that are moving away.

I have gotten in a couple workouts over the past couple weeks and I have also mowed the lawn three times.  That may not seem like a lot, but I sweat more mowing the grass yesterday than I did running for 30 minutes another day.

I have started building up some endurance again.  But, I have a LONG way to go before I am ready for another half marathon.  This is one part of the storm I am working to find shelter from.  Races are bearing down in me that I am not truly prepared for.  I am trying to decide whether to continue with those races at a much slower pace or to focus on races I have farther down the road.  I will soon come to a decision but I am hoping that completing my upcoming half is something I am capable of even if I do not attend my race this Thursday.  I am straddling the fence over whether this race would be a good training run for the half or whether I should do a different training run here at home.  Like I said, I'll get it figured out.  As for the workouts, they have been going well.  I said hello to the treadmill again and it wasn't that mean to me.  This week, I will be increasing the time amount for sure.

This weekend was definitely an interesting experience.  I had plans to go to Indy and take a ride on the HandleBar followed by going to the OAR concert.  As we headed down to Indy the sky started to darken.  While we were in our uber headed downtown it started to rain.  We hoped it would last a short time and hopped on the HandleBar for a trip around town.  The rain did not let up and we rode the entire time in the rain.  About halfway through we stopped at 9 Irish Brother on Mass Ave. to grab a beverage and the skies really opened up to the point that we stayed there for about an extra hour.  When the rain finally let up we hopped back on the "bike" and headed back downtown.  Unfortunately by this time our concert had been cancelled so we headed out to a local establishment for the remainder of the evening.  It was a great time even though I was still soaked to the bone.  Unfortunately, the night before this event, one of our friends had some limbs down on their house and her power was out...the house where we were staying.  When we got back we helped move some furniture in the basement to keep it dry and make sure that the sump pump was on a working battery.

Our stop in 9 Irish Brothers! Just a few drowned rats in there!

Yesterday was a rough day for the family.  We were sending some family friends off on their journey back home to Michigan.  Although they won't be leaving until this Saturday we made sure to spend some time together this weekend as a goodbye.  We were able to go out for dinner and then came back to my in-laws house to hang out and give some going away presents.  It was a sad day for everybody involved, but we know we will be seeing them again soon.  We can't wait to visit them in Michigan at some point.

As for my weight.  It am still headed in the wrong direction.  As we have discussed on here before, the drinks this weekend didn't help.  But, the snacks I have been having in the evenings aren't helping either.  The fact that my training has started to pick up again will definitely help.  Until next week.  Food. Feet. Water. Repeat.

Back to School Madness

What a busy time of year!  It has been even busier this year as Mrs. Re-Dan-imation has picked up a full time position as a kindergarten teacher!!!  Most of our free time the past two weeks has been spent getting her classroom ready and buying additional materials.  Yet again, my training has taken a back seat to something that needs to be done first.  I am not complaining in the least, just stating the facts.

Why not focus a little more on what I have enjoyed helping with over the past couple weeks?  I thought it would be fun to share some pictures from decorating her classroom as well as the bulletin boards outside of my classroom.  We decorated her classroom with a beach theme as you should be able to tell from the pictures.  Also, a thank you goes out to her family and friends for helping out as well.  Many people donated things to help her or came to school to help her get things organized.

Look at all those workers!!  Even the small ones!

The whole classroom, matching bulletin board, and the trip to Once Upon a Child!

I had to do a little work to my own classroom and one of the things I tend to pride myself on is the ability to come up with clever ideas for bulletin boards.  Here are the two I started the year with.  If you don't think they are clever, well...too bad.

With all of this work, I have been eating fast food on a consistent basis.  We finally went grocery shopping this week for what seems like the first time since we have been back from the hospital.  Obviously this hasn't been good to the diet.  I'll be honest...I am starting to get a little concerned with the fact that I have another half marathon coming up in September.  I am just going to take it one day at a time.  I may just have to use this as a learning experience.  I most likely won't set a PR at the Mill Race, but I have good feeling about the Monumental Half Marathon in November.

Last week, I weighed in at 271.5 lbs.  That puts me higher than two weeks ago.  For the first time since I started this journey I forgot to get on the scale this morning before I ate breakfast.  I decided that I would much rather skip the weigh in than see an even higher number on the scale.  As always, I am not discouraged, I am just letting you all know how it is.  As we continue getting our head back into school, I am also working toward getting my body back into fitness mode.  It WILL happen.  Until next week...Food. Feet. Water. Repeat.

Improvement for the Mrs.....and Me

I am sure many of you are wondering where I have been.  This is the second time in a row I have gone two weeks between posts.  I don't want you to think that I have given up on the process.  As a matter of fact, I am getting ready to head back to school and I am certain my eating and calorie counting will improve as I head back.  I am still here and I am still on the path to health.

But, what I am sure you are all even more concerned about is the health of Mrs. Re-Dan-imation.  As the title of the post lets you know, she is definitely improving.  After we came home from the hospital, it was a battle between her having to eat a "liquid" diet and what she really wanted to eat.  The medicine she was given for her esophagus has really helped with her eating.  The only real problem still lingering around her eating is that she coughs when she eats because the food is irritating her throat a bit when she swallows.  That should continue to get better.  Also, she has lost 18 pounds since she returned home!!  That may sound like a lot for her little body, but she was holding so much fluid and it has finally left her system so her weight is actually back to normal.  She is feeling a LOT better about the fluids she was holding and she totally does not feel like she looks pregnant anymore.

After returning home and getting things back to normal for a few days, we got a call from the fertility doctor's office.  Since we have had complications in the past and she has not been able to remain pregnant for a full term, it was our doctors suggestion that we have our embryos genetically tested this time to absolutely make sure they are good to go before they are transferred back to her. Here is where the whole process gets really interesting.  If you remember from the last post, the doctors removed 46 eggs from her.  After the embryologist fertilized all the eggs, 33 actually became fertilized.  Of those 33 eggs, the next test was to see if they made it to the 3 day mark.  26 made it to the 3 day mark.  The next mark is becoming what is called a 5 day blastocyst.  We had 15 make it to the point of 5 day blastocyst.  That means that in the olden days of IVF (the 1980s) we would have had 15 embryos to implant at some point.

Well, with modern medicine comes much more accuracy.  Of our 15 blastocysts, we had 10 biopsied and then frozen and had the other 5 frozen without being biopsied.  It's an expensive process so testing the extra 5 was just not in the cards.  Now for the results.  Of the 10 that we had tested, 5 were deemed as non-viable.  This means that implanting them  would result in pregnancies that would not make it (they were all missing/had extra chromosomes).  Of the other 5 that we tested, 1 would be a viable pregnancy but would have Turner Syndrome meaning that it would be a healthy person but would be sterile.  That will definitely not be an embryo we will be using as Kristy could never live with herself knowing ahead of time that her offspring could never have a child.  That leaves us with 4 perfectly viable and healthy embryos, but wait it gets cooler than that.  The embryologist informed us that of those 4 embryos, 2 are boys and 2 are girls.  HOLY COW!!!  Didn't even think about them knowing that, but obviously since they are checking for abnormal chromosomes they would know.  We have decided though, that when we do implant one, it will be randomly chosen by the embryologist and we won't know whether they have chosen a boy or a girl until after.  If everything turns out healthy and great, I am sure we will choose to have the other implanted the next time.  We're working on one thing at a time here.

Since, Mrs. Re-Dan-imation was feeling better and I had already planned a golf weekend in Michigan, I got to head up North.  I headed out on Friday with friends and clubs in tow.  The plan was to play 18 holes on Friday and 36 holes on Saturday.  It just so happens that weekend was the hottest weekend of the summer so far.  Surprise, right?!  We did manage to get in all 3 rounds, and also enjoyed hanging out in the pool at one of my friend's brother's house.  Thanks Mike for letting us stay at your place.  I even had my best round of the summer at what was easily the nicest course we played.

Last week we had more big news come our way.  Mrs. Re-Dan-imation accepted a 2nd grade position here in town at the end of the school year.  She was obviously excited about the opportunity, but sad to leave her friends and coworkers at the building where she spent almost every day last year.  Well, a kindergarten position opened up and after the principals talked, they contacted her to see if she would want to switch.  She spent the evening thinking about it and discussing it with me and then chose to go ahead and make the move.  This building and grade level are both where her heart truly lies and both principals knew it would be the right fit.  I guess you could say it was lucky she had been sick, because she hadn't set up her room completely so it was a quick move of her stuff across town.  Since then, we have been spending most of our free time getting her room set up.

However, this weekend was the Frankfort Main Street Hot Dog Festival.  My mom decided she was going to have a booth at the festival this year to sell the wooden and canvas signs that she prints and paints herself.  I was pretty pumped about the idea.  On Thursday, I helped her set up her booth and then Friday and Saturday we spent literally every waking minute at the festival.  I had a great time, even though it was pretty sweltering in the booth because they get pretty stuffy.  She was pleased with how she did and is looking forward to having booths at other festivals in the future.  I can't wait to help her again.  You should check out her stuff here (she can make custom orders if you are interested).

That brings us up to this point where you are probably wondering about my weight over the past couple weeks.  Well, not being able to eat the same meals as my wife the first week really put me in a bad spot.  I ballooned up to 271.1 lbs.  That's what happens when you eat fast food all the time and stay inside not doing anything except keep an eye on somebody that just needs to rest and recuperate.  This last week, I did much better and my weight went back down to a respectable 267.7 lbs.  I am still not down to my "high" mark of having lost 30 pounds, but I will get back there soon.  I am looking forward to continuing the journey and sharing it with you.  Thanks to all of you that read and commented on my last post (it has had over 2200 views...about 1800 more than any other post I have written).  Mrs. Re-Dan-imation was truly touched by all of your support and still gets asked around town about how she is feeling.  I hope that many of you that viewed that post keep following me on here.  You can subscribe by submitting your email at the top of this page.  I would love to have more of your follow me.  With that I will leave you for the week.  Until next week...Food, Feet, Water, Repeat.