EXCUSEZ-MOI!

I've been having troubles lately with my tummy.  I mean, worse troubles than usual.  My guts, or "bowel" as the doctor likes to call it, has turned into this giant, hard knot. The start of an ulcer? IBS? Not sure yet, the lab will disclose that soon enough.  While I wait it out in discomfort, fatigue and constant nausea, I gotta admit there are a few laughs that go along with the symptoms of an irritated bowel. Yep, I'm gonna use that word alot cause I bet it makes people squirm...he he! Anyway, my angry bowel becomes quite a bit happier when I can release some of the pressure on it. This, as you may have already guessed, involves farting, which, as anyone who knows me well, can attest to, I do a lot. While I have always had, what my sister refers to as a "rotten ass," lately things have become significantly more rotten, if that's possible!  The rotteness grows more intense, however, I continue to be reining champ of the "silent but violent" signature emission.  This has become extremely handy in my professional field.  As a teacher, it is easy to get away with these horrible flachulents, mostly undetected...I've had a lot of fun with this over the last couple of weeks.  I will "let one go," walk away and watch the drama unfold.  It always starts with the student who happened to be closest to the "drop zone," catching a whiff.  His nose starts to wrinkle, he looks around, with an accusing glance at other classmates.  Within seconds he is pulling his shirt up over his nose, a move that is always followed by a verbal blaming of the guy sitting next to him.  By this time several students have gone through the same motions and before I know it, more than half the class, shirts up over their noses are making gagging noises, pointing fingers at suspects.  I move around the room continuously avoiding eye contact with all victims.  Most of the time I can't help but get into the action, by commenting, "ewww, someone stinks!!!"  My comments are always followed by my lips turning up into a grin, which is indefinately followed by an outloud laugh, after all, farts are always funny. The best though, is when one of the little gaffers proudly claims the stench as his own!!!  "Excusez-moi.  It was me," the boy called out with a pride so convincing, no one questioned it, especially not me!

THE DOMS

On the last day of school, I packed every dumbell, all exercise balls and my plyometric laddar out of my classroom into my car. I had taken to teaching a Bootcamp class, two afternoons a week to some of the staff. We'd had a lot of fun sweating together, but over the summer, I planned to continue my workouts at home, HA!!! 

Just yesterday, I picked every dumbell, all exercise balls and the plyometric ladder, up off the garage floor where it had sat all summer and loaded it back into my car.  All the good intentions in the world had not been enough to make me to leave the sunshine, my running paths and the bike trails to spend anytime at all on developing my biceps.  Yesterday afternoon though, my biceps got a wake up call!  Only a few short months ago I had biceps and as far as I was concerned they surly must still exist. I am not the kind of athlete who believes that I could have possibly gotten out of shape, just because I took a break from working out.  As I shouted words of encouragement to the ladies I was training, I curled, pressed, squated, side raised and lunged with weights similar to those that I had lifted in June. I crunched, skipped and stepped with the same vigour I had during the last week of school.  I wiped my face with a fresh towel, waved good bye  to my sweaty friends and headed for home, wondering how I was so lucky to be one of those people who could stay fit and strong without spending all summer in the gym...this morning, I realized, I AM NOT!!!!!  My legs barely supported my weight as I threw them over the bed and tried to stand up.  I braced myself against the wall as my legs wobbled under the pressure of holding up my body and felt pain race across my chest. Not heart attack pain, but chest muscle pain.  I stumbled to the bathroom, sure that my walk resembled that of someone with a stick shoved down their pants.  It took me 20 seconds to lower myself to the toilett seat, my quads screamed, but not as loud as my butt cheeks upon contact with the porcelain.  Scrubbing my hair and applying mascara proved to be challenging as my shoulders burned and fatigued after only a few seconds of being raised.  I grabbed the railing with both hands, but getting down the stairs was slow and painful!! All day, I hobbled along, strained to sit and avoided all stairs.  My entire body screamed, "you did this to yourself, you idiot!!!!!!"  The ladies who had sweated with me, cursed me all day as they too struggled to do everyday simple tasks like sit on the toilet seat and sneeze! I did my best to try to disguise the fact, that I too was suffering and thought, OMG, if we think this is bad, wait until tomorrow, when the DOMS (delayed onset muscle sorness) set in for real! Ahhhhh!! No pain, no gain right?????

EARLY TO BED

Remember when you were little and you couldn't wait to grow up so you could stay up as late as you wanted at night? I do. I remember thinking that when I grew up I would never go to bed before 10pm.  I would sit on the couch after supper, eat corn chips, drink beer and watch TV.  That's what it seemed like my Dad did. Every time I came downstairs to pee, after I'd been sent to bed, I'd see Dad, sitting on the couch, eating corn chips, telling me to be quiet and go back to sleep.  He looked so relaxed, one hand on the remote, the other wrapped around a beer.  I desperately wanted to be in his shoes and I couldn't wait.  

Now, here I am in my thirties myself, and the only thing my hands wrap around after 10pm is the pen I use to cross things off the "to do" list sitting on the counter!  Sooo much to do, so little time! True, the things on my list are all fun things, so it's hard to feel sorry for me.  But even fun things like, walking my dog, riding my horse, taking riding lessons, grocery shopping, teaching Bootcamps, talking to friends on the phone, talking to Nic, in Nepal, on the phone, finding jelly-bellies at Walmart, wedding dress shopping, running, calling Oasis Weddings Mayan, need to get done in the waking hours.  There just doesn't seem to be enough of them to do all of that and have time to sit on the couch eating corn chips, drinking beer.  How did Dad do it? Maybe that's just the way I remember it....or maybe it is just the male way...even as I write this at 11:02pm, Marty is laying on the couch a bag of caramel popcorn in one hand, the remote in the other......

THEY JUMP HORSES AT THE MASTERS????? WHO KNEW??

I spent almost 5 hours, Saturday at Spruce Meadows, Calgary's premier horse jumping facility during, The Masters, Calgary's world class horse jumping event, and didn't even see one horse jump one fence, not one!!  See mom and I wondered into the Equifair, before heading over to the jumping arena and, well, never left! We got swept up in the excitement that is horse people selling horse stuff to other horse people.  We laughed at silly T-shirts with sayings like "silly cowboy, trucks are for girls," we slid large silver and turquoise bangles and rings over our apendages, we watched Sahm-Wow demos, stared as one lady squirted ketchup on white breeks, and watched in amazement as she demonstrated the technology inside the fabric of those english riding pants that allowed her to just spray the red tomatoey stain off with water.  We tasted food from around the world, enjoyed countless free candies, displayed at almost every booth, tried on everything from boots, to scarves to raincoats and we pet every breed of horse imaginable, but we did not see one single horse jump one single fence.  We spent time in bathrooms, changerooms, alleyways and barns, but not one minute in the stands at the jumping arena.  We spent money to park, money to eat, money on clothes and other great horsey "must haves" but not one dime on a "Spruce Meadows Masters" souvenir.  We had a great time together all over Calgary's premier horse park, except in the spectator stands.  Why did we spend 5 hours at Spruce Meadows during an elite jumping event and not watch any jumping? Because we were having too much fun to notice we were missing anything!!! For all we knew, there was nothing else going on in the park! Thanks mom for an awesome weekend!!

Check out the adorable English riding breeks and tops we got!! Yes please!!!

SCOUT!!!!!!!

Scout ate my two hundred dollar running shoes today!!!! I shrugged off the Walmart flip flops she destroyed this summer, I chalked the missing toe on my Merrels up to her being a brand new puppy last fall, but this, the two hundred dollar shoes, this cannot be ignored....but I guess it has to be. Marty texted me this morning, when he discovered the "accident" but there was nothing I could do from my classroom but shake my head.  By the time I got home, Marty had obviously cleaned up the crime scene, well kind of.  Weird how boys clean things up.  I got home and saw what was left of my two hundred dollar Asics!!!  The tops of the toes were chewed out of them, the laces were strung out across the floor and bits and pieces of plastic and rubber were scattered near by.  Okay, so maybe Marty hadn't actually cleaned up the crime scene at all...weird. I would have.  Who leaves a gory murder scene, even a shoe murder scene all day for the Victim to see, in detail, when she gets home from a long day at work?????? Oh yeah, her fiance, ofcorse!

Anyway, standing in the middle of the now 8 hour old crime scene was the criminal herself.  Her whole body shook with excitement when she saw, her tongue started licking the air with kisses for me, her best buddy!  All of this love made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to be mad at her, impossible!  Instead, I decided to be mad at Marty.  That's how my night went....think I'll go eat some nutella....

AHHHH

Went riding with my friend Jamie after work today. Jamie, her horse, Panda, DirtFace, Scout and I have been riding together quite a bit this summer.  Panda has gotten used to Scout dashing in and out of the bushes carrying long, scary sticks, Dirt Face has gotten used to Scout "helping" me lead him across the pasture by grabbing the lead shank in her teeth and Jamie has gotten used to Scout's over zealous welcome ritual, the one that involves lots of wiggling, plenty of licking and a little jumping.  All in all, I'd say we had a great summer!  

Today, though, it is summer, it felt like fall. We went riding right after work so we didn't have Scout with us, which just felt wrong!  But then, right from the get go things didn't quite feel right, especially for Jamie.  First, she had forgotten her riding clothes in her car and had to change out of her skirt and blouse in the back of the barn, she had no socks and had to wrestle with her boots to get her sweaty feet into them, and then Panda had a few new scrapes and scabs on his butt.  Finally we got the boys saddled and headed out on another riding adventure, minus our trusty sidekick, Scout.  We randomly decided to ride into a part of the pasture that we hadn't ridden all summer.  When we got to the gate, I jumped off Dirt to open it. Dirt stood, munching on grass while I struggled with the barbed wire.  Jamie sat on Panda while he reached his head down to gobble grass, as he was clearly starving, ha!  Anyway the longer I struggled the more vigourously Panda chewed at the grass.  At one point he started stomping his foot. Like, really stomping.  Jamie and I both, startled looked at him and cursed, "what the hell are you doing Panda?" From where I was standing on the ground, I could see something in his eyes that told me he was not just having a temper tantrum.  His stomping became more urgent and Jamie grabbed a hold of the reins.  Finally, I saw a hornet on his foot, "he's got a bee on him, " I pointed out casually and as soon as those words had come out of my mouth, I realized, he didn't just have a bee on him, he had several!  "Ahhh, your standing on a wasp's nest!" I screamed! Jamie, wheeled an agitated, jigging, stomping, head tossing Panda out of the area and dismounted as soon as she could.  Needless to say, we cut our ride short and headed back to the barn.  Jamie hosed down Panda's already swelling legs, which was easy to do without Scout running around trying to "help" with the hose.  Today's ride wasn't the same as our fun summer rides, and I think all four of us went to bed tonight longing for those lazy, Scout accompanied, wasp free rides!

ROLLING RETRIEVERS

This is not a retriever, it's Jasper.  Scout found a great playmate in Aimee and Shane's dog, he could almost keep up with her, almost....

Just got back from the dog park, where Scout invented a new game: Rolling Retrievers! Anyone who has met Scout, knows that she has a an abundance of energy!  She plays hard, sleeps hard and eats hard, if you can't keep up, you better get out of her way!!  That is what the dogs down at the park are learning. Either, you chase her in a million high speed circles, you get up on your hind feet and attempt to box with her, or you get rolled!!!  We must have met three golden retrievers today, ranging in age from 6 months to 2.5 years and though all three displayed valliant attempts at playing with Scout, they were no match.  Each one of them in turn found themselves rolling down one hill or another after being accidently knocked to the ground, by an exuberant Scout, who then licked them to death! Her tongue worked with such force that it literally gave each dog just enough of a push that he or she found themselves tumbling down slopes, Scout excitedly chasing after them! While it can be intimidating, hers is the kind of energy that scoops all, within a hundred foot radius, into a giant frenzy of happy excitement! I wish I could bottle that enthusiasm up and drink it each day before heading into my classroom, or better yet, I wish I could feed it to every kid in my classroom.  I would way rather have them racing around in crazy puppy circles than sitting, lifeless and tired in their desks!  Not that there is any sitting unaffected in my classroom! Anyone who knows me, knows that I too, have an energy all my own.  It starts with my "loud talking" and doesn't end until all of my students, from the 9 year olds to the 14 year olds are standing singing "Vive la Vie" en francais, with actions ofcorse! :)

Tomorrow, I have to go back to work and Scout will go back to the park.  We'll both pack our energy and see who we can intoxicate!!!

Vive la vie!