Sunday

What Did I Do?!

Those of you that have been following me the last few months through cancer and subsequent foot surgery to fix some issues, you know that I've been trying hard to overcome those events with a different mind-set.  I am proud of myself these last few weeks.

My change of heart has been through a test the last 3 weeks.  My foot, while it would ache and swell marginally after a long walk, or when I tried to step it up to run, I would press on.  My stamina has increased as well as my daily desire to actually fit in some kind of workout.  I can't call it guilt, but rather a knowledge that I would feel better, mentally and physically, once I did.  It really works!!  I highly recommend it.

Every workout, whether indoors or outside, includes my iTouch, full of music that moves me:  great beats, inspirational, motivational, and fast paced.  I talk to God during my workouts.  I pray for "my babies" (children and grandchildren), my husband, and thoroughly enjoy simply being thankful to God for my health and ability to even do a workout.  He is so very faithful.  Gone are the days of my lazy workouts where I barely break a sweat, lifting a few 5 or 10 lb weights.  I work hard - really hard.  It feels really good too.

My foot, though tender, was cooperating in general until about 2 weeks ago.  I don't know what happened, but each workout ended with the foot being more sore than usual.  It would start to hurt at night when I slept - actually waking me up.  Then I tweaked it on Wednesday and felt it give.  Now it hurts almost every step of every day.  I have rounded up some old pain pills from the surgery and have had to take those to get it quieted down to even sleep.  Clearly workouts on the elliptical or treadmill are out of the question.  I'm back to only 3 pairs of shoes even fitting.  I called and setup an appointment with my foot doctor for Wednesday.  I also didn't workout Thursday thru Saturday.  It really bothered me to not fit one in. I was very active given some activities planned, but no workout at all had me bummed.

Sunday, I woke up early and decided to try a short .20 mile walk around the neighborhood to see how it would pan out.  It didn't.  I could barely make it all the way around.  Determined, I went into my workout space and decided to craft a workout that would work with my bad foot.  I did it!  I worked out about 45 minutes using weights, and got creative with my workout ball.  Yippee!

I love it that I beat down a very good excuse to not workout and found a way!  I feel like I've turned a critical corner in my journey to healthy living.

So, I don't know what I did to my foot.  I'm concerned given I need it for a variety of reasons.  I'm somewhat worried about the outcome given I have a heavy walking vacation planned for the end of summer.  This same thing happened last time I had foot surgery 10 years ago.  I ended up needing full reconstructive surgery and bone grafts and 8 months on crutches.  I'm praying hard that is not the case again here.

Pray with me.

Monday

I'm Going to Whine a Bit Here...

I was at my favorite Sumner restaurant last month with James and I partook of their $5 wine tasting they have on Wednesday nights, or was it a Thursday nights, I forget.  Sorci's is a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant that has great food.  The owner is a wine afficianado and loves to have wine tastings and actually has a huge collection to select from, considering the tiny size of the place.  So this particular Wednesday, or Thursday, his offering was from his sweeter wine selections.  I love sweet wines, so this particular tasting was a go for me.

It was a lovely evening sitting at their antique marble bar (their other 5 tables were full, so we had to sit at the bar that night) enjoying our food and my sweet little tastings. While waiting for our food, I started reading some of the descriptions of the wines that were laying around in various holders there on the bar.  One hit me as particularly hilarious.  I dug in my purse and grabbed my business card and started scribbling the notation down so I would have it for later blogging.  I couldn't pass up the description for the 2007 Catena Malbec.

A sleek, polished style, with alluring mocha and raspberry ganache notes leading the way, backed by dark plum, hoisin sauce and graphite flavors that push through the finish. This has serious weight, but stays focused and driven.  (I didn't make up this punctuation - truly.)

What in the heck does that mean?!!??  Graphite?  Hoisin sauce?  I'm thinking that the vintners were sipping a little too much of the product before creating their little wine-blurb.  Answer me this: how does a wine stay focused and driven?  What does graphite taste like?  Did they throw in some pencils and left over sauce from their lunchtime chinese takeout?

It got me thinking about other descriptors and decided to go do some research.  Here are a few of my favorites that I found off of the Wine Library web site.

2006 Perrin Christins Vacqueyras - Very racy, with lots of red and black currant fruit backed by a great graphite spine. Offers nice hints of licorice, spice and iron on the finish.  Iron?  Graphite spine?

2008 Keller Klaus Westhofen Kirchspiel Riesling Trocken - ...On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very, very pure and seamless, with a rock solid core of fruit, bright acids, superb focus and a classic shape on the very long, racy and laser-like finish. Just a superb bottle in the making.

2005 L'arlot Les Suchots Vosne Romanee - Deep, bright red. Sexy aromas and flavors of bitter cherry, redcurrant, minerals, cocoa powder and flowers. Lush and sweet, with a texture of liquid velvet. Boasts wonderful subtle depth and explosive inner-mouth perfume. A wine of great class and finesse, but also has the strength for a brilliant evolution in bottle. This stains the palate with perfume in a way that just about no pinot made outside Burgundy can imitate.  My palate will be stained; oh dear. I wonder if that will ruin me for other wines in the future; though I would like to find out what liquid velvet tastes like.

2006 Chateau Pape Clement - The dense purple-colored 2006 boasts an extraordinary perfume of lead pencil shavings, creme de cassis, burning embers, and a sensation that can only be described as like walking through a damp forest on a hot, humid day...  Lead pencil shavings?  Burning embers?  Oh,  the walk through the forest sounds nice, unless of course, you're near a marsh with skunk cabbage, or you are in close proximity of some rutting elk; then not so much.

I'm sure there's some wine afficiando out there somewhere who could tell me that some of these words are really important.  There is probably some secret de-coder ring that other wine nuts know about, telling one exactly what to expect from the wine.  But hey, I'm not a wine afficiando.  They sound just plain weird to me.