These shoes were made for walking…

Starting last Thursday, my foot made some good progress. I was able to walk two miles on Friday night between 18-20 minutes per mile. Saturday morning I did more than three miles walking and was able to get below 17 minute miles in the end. I am trodding a fine line right now with the ankle, but can feel that the tide has turned. I just need to avoid overdoing things (which I have a tendency to do).

I saw my podiatrist last night and he is pleased with the progress. He gave me a homeopathic injection in the tendon that is still bothering me but says that I have a relatively mild case of tendonitis since he couldn't palpitate the area and make it hurt. Just keep bracing and working out and listening to my ankle. I hope to build up my walking in April and be back to running in May.

Don’t try this at home

Easter morning I was making a fruit salad and a Greek salad to take to the family get together at my ex-husband's house. I had everything done except slicing the red onion and stirring the Greek salad together. I decided it was time to use my mandolin to slice the onion.

As I pulled it out of the drawer, I was thinking back to my trip to Georgia and my daughter buying one for her house. My son-in-law, Jeremy, was having too much fun using it and would get a gleam of excitement in his eye as he pulled it out each day. We warned him to use the guard or he would slice his hand.

Can you guess where this is heading? I didn't see the guard, but vowed to be careful. Unfortunately, it only takes a momentary loss of concentration and then you are saying, "Oh crap!". I knew the moment I did it that I had done a thorough job on my right thumb.

Finger wrapped in a towel, my son was called upon to finish assembling the salad. Then he had to put on a pressure bandage so I could take a bath.

Five hours later, we could not get the bleeding to stop and I was feeling very light headed, so my son dropped me off at the Emergency Room on our way home. Silver Nitrate to cauterize the wound (and a horrible injection of lidocaine that doubled the size of my thumb) and I was sent home two hours later.

Can I just go back in time and skip the one stupid move that caused this awesome adventure?

Bittersweet

I received an email from the Utah Valley Marathon race directors today stating that the half marathon in June was already sold out. I registered for this several months ago, but have been wondering lately if I would be ready for it considering I haven't been able to run since February.

Since the RD was being nice enough to allow us to sell our slots, I signed up on Facebook this morning and immediately had my offer grabbed up. A couple of hours later and a bank transaction later and I am no longer entered in the half marathon.

While this takes the pressure off my trying to get up the ability to run that far in the next 2 months, it also feels a bit like admitting defeat. I really hate this being mature and wise bit!

100 Pushup Challenge

Five weeks ago I broached my co-workers on doing the 100 pushup challenge and 200 sit-up challenges. We had a good group at first. Joining me for pushups were Matt, Nancy, Randa, Michele, Russell and Paul (who had just had knee surgery a week or two earlier). Joining me for sit-ups were Michele, Nancy, Randa, Megan, and Matt.

It is kind of a nice break during the day to gather in the Client Support area or in an office and share the pain as we rotated through our sets. Of course, Paul was always amazing because he does these perfect, effortless pushups. Mine are pretty pathetic, but most weeks I have been able to crank most of my pushups out 'man' style.

Three weeks in Michele, Randa and I went on a business trip to Michigan. I think that was the end of the sit-up challenge because no one seems to be doing those anymore.

Add in sickness (like pneumonia is a good excuse), injuries, laziness, etc and the numbers doing pushups have dwindled. Hopefully we will get a couple of people to join us again next week. Paul and I have been on our own for a while. We did week 3 twice in a row and moved on to week 4 this week. By the end of today I had done 160 pushups and Paul had done 170. I'm not sure if it is better to avoid the pushups and do them later in the day or get them over with so I don't dread them all day.

Life related to Project Management for Dummies

I just finished reading Project Management for Dummies. It was my first book on Project Management and a lot of the concepts are still totally foreign to me, but it is part of the learning process. What I found was interesting while reading this book is that some of the quotes I enjoyed apply to all of my life and not just the Project Management portion at work. Here are some of my favorites:

• The more specific your project objectives (insert plans and goals), the greater your chances are of achieving them.
  
• Don't use technical jargon.
  
• Make your objectives SMART: Specific, Measurable, Aggressive, Realistic, Time-sensitive.
  
• Often a project (insert problem) is like an iceberg: Nine-tenths of it lurks below the surface.
  
• Past history doesn't guarantee future performance. It does, however, provide a guideline for what's possible.
  
• Why do we say the very things we don't want people to hear? The reason is either fear of success or fear of failure. Unfortunately, by trying to minimize the pain of failure, we wind up essentially guaranteeing that we'll experience it.