Good Farm News

A couple of weeks ago, the lawyer for my mother-in-law's estate called to say the farm land had been severed and the deed to Hubby's section is now in his name. Halleluiah. It's only taken about 18 months to settle the estate. The lawyers are unbelievably slow and the a**hole brother-in-law wasn't exactly cooperative either. But it's done and now we can move on with the renovations.

Then on Saturday, we got a phone call from a farmer down that way who wants to rent the land. He made a reasonable offer, so Hubby took him up on it. It's all coming together. With the land rental and the rental of the small house, the farm will pay for itself. What a relief.

Yesterday, we went bathtub shopping, and I think we got two picked out, one for each house. Hubby just wants to talk to the plumber and take some more measurements before buying them. We picked out a clawfoot tub for the big house. That room is going to look so nice when it's finished.

Hubby will be spending a couple of weeks there in March, possibly getting the bathrooms put back in and varnishing the panelling. There's no heat or running water, so it won't be much fun for him, but he thinks he can get the space heater in the living room working, and we have two other electric heaters. He can put one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen to warm those rooms up. It'll be like camping. He'll have fun. I'm just glad I'm not going.

Cold or Bored

I had to make a choice today, and I chose the boredom of the treadmill over running outside in the cold. Today's schedule called for 8 miles, and I wondered how I would get through it on the treadmill. I watched the last bit of Oprah, all of Dr. Phil, and the first 15 minutes of the six o'clock news. I got off a couple of times to go to the bathroom, and before I knew, I had 8 miles in the bank.

The best part was when I was heading back to the changeroom, I walked by the room where my group gathers. I could hear Coach saying "And one more thing before we head out..." Yeah, I was done before they even left. As I sit here now, all warm and well fed, I'm thinking, I would probably just be getting back, all cold and hungry, if I had chosen cold over bored.

Generation V

Here's a link I shamelessly stole from a fellow blogger.

I'm not feeling the "V" with this weather. All I want to do is hibernate. They've lifted the wind chill advisory, but it's still danged cold out there.

Just Like Starting Over

Last weekend I dipped down to 127.5 lbs. I just weighed myself this morning at 131.5. One week of poor eating and exercise habits undid all of my hard work of the past month. That's depressing. I'm hoping some of it is water weight from the extra sodium ingested.

It's going to be hard to get back on the wagon after all the laziness of last week, but no exuses. I'm going to the gym at noon to do my upper body workout and then again after work for my Firm Parts/Awesome Abs class. I'll whip this body back into shape in no time.

Global Warming

I've been reading a lot of articles on the internet about Global Warming the last couple of days. The UN released a report stating that Global Warming is a result of human activity and if nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as six degrees Celsius by 2100.

David Suzuki has a great website and I joined his Nature Challenge.

I also followed a link from one of his newsletters to the 100 Mile Diet. Hubby and I have agreed to try the 100 mile diet one day a week as a start. We can go to our local farmer's market. This time of year, we'll be eating hothouse vegetables, but as long as they're not transported more than 100 miles (160 km), they're legal. We're also going to check out the Arva Flour Mills just north of the city to see what we can get for locally milled flour. Then we'll dust off the bread machine and make some home made bread. This is going to be an interesting experiment.

Too Cold to Run

I checked the weather network when I got up this morning and it was -18 C with a windchill factor of -28. No way was I going out in that. So I've missed my long run two weeks in a row. I can't wait for spring.

Around the Bay

I registered for Around the Bay this morning. I've never done this race, but my running group sends a bus every year. I have three reasons for not wanting to do it. First, it's run in March when the weather is unpredictable. Second, it's 30K, that's a long race. And third, there's apparently a big hill near the end. But I've been told it's good training for Boston, so I'm gonna do it.

I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing

Yesterday we had a staff lunch at one of the nicer restaurants in town. I had a chicken breast stuffed with some kind of bread, crab meat and asparagus,wrapped in proscuitto with a cream sauce. It came with a twice baked potato. The serving was huge and I was hungry, so I ate the whole thing. When we got back to the office, I had a bit of a tummy ache from all that food and I knew I was in trouble for my 10 mile run in the evening.

The run started out okay, but I was still feeling heavy and bloated. A couple of miles in I knew I had to find a washroom. I didn't want to slow my running buddies down, so I made it over half way before I suggested we stop for a washroom break. I felt slightly better after that.

It was a fairly mild night compared to some of our runs lately. The temperature was a balmy -3 C. The sidewalks were snow covered, so we ran on the road where we could, but on the busier streets we stuck to the sidewalks. Running through snow is like running through sand, and I started to get a pain in my lower left leg. It wasn't a good pain. It was kind of like when I had my stress fractures, but it wasn't on my tibia, more to the side.

Once we got past University Hospital, and we were on our way back, we were on quieter streets, so we got off the sidewalk and ran on the street. A car came by and some guy yelled out the window at us to ask if we knew what the sidewalks were for. Jerk. Runners have the right to run on the roads. We've been told that a number of times by our coach. And it wasn't like the jerk didn't have room to get around us.

Anyway, my tummy started feeling yucky again and I thought I might need another pit stop. I struggled on and we made it back. 10 miles in 1:57.

Somebody warn me next time I think I can eat a big meal on a running day.