I am now in the workout-every-day phase of my season. My hamstring is still bothering me, but it seems to be okay when I consciously stretch it several times a day like I'm supposed to.

I may, however, be overdoing the workouts. I'm not sure yet, because Sunday's practice was so hard for me, with the heat and my hamstring bothering me. Sunday's practice was four hours long, followed by a fairly light Monday workout at Velocity Sports. It had to be light, I was able to finish it.

This morning, Heather and I returned to the Center of Balance, this time in the morning to try another instructor. I suspected that, well, since VS has the hard instructor in the morning, so maybe CoB also has the hard instructor in the morning: only the hard core people would get up early in the morning to work out, right? Right.

Heather and I both broke a sweat in the same place in the workout, about 3/4 of the way into the hour long Pilates/Yoga/Core progression, and near the beginning of the abs set. Once again, there were maybe two exercises I couldn't do, but, because of the much smaller class size in the morning (8 people vs about 30 in the lunch class last week), I received individualized alignment help.

After adjusting both Heather and I on a particularly difficult ab position, the instructor asked if we were both soccer players. Apparently our builds, strengths and weaknesses, all implied the movement of soccer players. When Heather said, no, ultimate frisbee, the instructors face lit up. Clearly, yes, he was close in his first guess, but yes, ultimate made sense.

He encouraged us to stick with the program for a month and see how much better our sense of balance is. I think that's a fine idea, since he teaches Tuesdays and Thursdays, offset from the VS MWF morning schedule.

Of course, this will make me a morning person.

In the evening, I went to track practice. The workout didn't seem too hard on paper: 1 mile warmup run, 2 sets of 200-300-400-300-200. Two steps into the warmup run, however, and I knew this was going to be a very hard workout for me. Not only were my legs total moosh, but my left achilles was shooting up flares of hot-white-poker pains.

I managed to make it through one set of 200-300-400-300-200 with careful running to minimize my achilles aggravation, before I gave up during the break and left early.

Since my legs were moosh, I decided an ice bath was in order, so filled the tub with cold water, skipping the ice. A few screeches later and a magazine later, and I was sitting in the bathtub, the really really cold bathtub. I kept moving slightly to prevent the thin layer of water next to my skin from warming up, which I'm sure made the whole process even colder. Lyndsay swears by these things, so cold water it is.

Three articles later, I was done with my 20 minutes in the water. As I stood up from the bath water, I realized I was about to dump all of this water down the drain, when all I did was sit in it. It may not have been clean enough to drink (or it might have been), but it was certainly clean enough to put on my plants.

After drying off, I wandered to the backyard for a hose. Guy had bought a potable water hose for me last week, as "potable" is the only type of hose I'll buy or use at this point, so I had one that would work for the syphoning I had planned.

After filling the hose with water, I kept trying to figure out how to get the other end out the window and onto the ground without letting air into the line. I gave up after about five minutes, threw the hose out the window, verified the one end was still submerged in the bathtub, and wandered outside.

My plan was to get the water out of the tub, onto my garden. The problem, however, was getting the water flow to start.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to use a 25' hose as a drinking straw for tub water?

It's hard. I bruised my lips in a circle trying to suck the water onto the garden. I mean, hello? How many people do you know have circle bruises on their lips? (Me? I know of only one.) Worse, done to save less than 2 cents of water?

Eventually I realized the suction was going to fail, and I ended up using a bucket and hauling the water from the tub to the garden the old fashioned way: by hand.

This austerity program is killing me! Piece by little piece I don't fill up my life with pieces of crap, or items that will make me happy for a moment, but ultimately clutter up my life and weigh me down emotionally at all the stuff I have.

I know the eventual outcome. Doesn't change the face that I want it (where "it" is the object du moment). I want it now.

Each time I think, oooooooo, I want, I want, I stop and think for a moment. Do I really want it? Can I live without it?

Pretty much the only thing I'm spending money on now is food.

I'm still receiving little surprises every now and then, as an order I placed months ago is sent to me (hello, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). For the most part, however, my credit card bills are smaller (and you say, "zero balance?"), my bank account is staying the same, and I'm slowly weaning myself from the obssesive consumerism that has been a constant in my life for the last decade.

If only I had bought an iPhone before I started this program.

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Yeah, so, writing and posting, two actions, not one. If you are one of the small number of people who come here on a regular basis, you'll probably want to skip to the end (or, the other end) to catch up. I'm posting in reverse cronological order, so yesterday's post comes first.

Nothing like playing blog catch up to figure out what's been goin' on.

Yay!

Heather is staying with us this weekend. Heather of the now short(ish) hair!

Unfortunately, I can't actually prove with pictures she's here. All I managed today was pictures of her backside.

Boo, my photo taking skills. Though, it's not like I'm not nearly famous for my backside pictures.

Danger, through his mom, had given Kris two VIP tickets to today's A's game against the Mariners. The Mariners who, by the way, have Ichiro playing (Ichiro being the only consistent hitter I have in the Beat the Streak contest. At Doyle's suggestion, I prefilled Ichiro as my hitter for the next two weeks, in case I forget to pick a player. What do you know? My best streak is at 13 now. Kris' is at only 9.).

Not being exactly the biggest baseball fan ever, I suggested Kris ask someone else to go with him. Yes, I'd go, but wouldn't he rather go with someone who will also enjoy the game with him, and not go and wonder why she was there, thinking of all the other tasks she'd rather be doing? I mean, come on, think of the babies!

So, he called up his new best friend yesterday, and made plans. I offered to watchin' the doggen, so plans were made to leave from here, with two dogs having a doggie fun day at Krikitt Downs.

I'm still not sure what drugs I took to make such an offer escape my lips.

So, this morning, Andy came over with Blue and Shadow. Thankfully, he didn't knock when he arrived. Instead, he followed standard Krikitt Downs' friends protocol and walked right in. I love when my friends know they can do that, and do.

A short while later, Kris and Andy were off, and I was in the house with four dogs. Four dogs that, combined, were double my weight. More doggen that I'm used to having.

Blue spent the first half hour of his visit with me staring at the front door where Andy had gone through. He stared almost as if, by sheer force of will, he could bring Andy back through the door.

When that failed, he sat down next to me and stared up at me.

Panting.

For two hours.

Might have been longer, I'm not sure. I tried to pet him, get him up on the couch next to me to snuggle me as Bella does. He wasn't having any of it, and sat there, staring and panting, panting and staring. At one point, he went back to the front door to stare at it, no panting. He returned a few moments later to stare at me.

And pant.

A strange way to spend the day, to be sure.

Eventually, the game ended, and the boys came back from the game. Blue heard the car door shut and either Andy's or Kris' voice first, and bum rushed the door. He was shortly followed by a Shadow, the Cone-head and the Howler.

That either Andy or Kris made it through the front door with the mounds of doggie flesh piled up behind it, amazes me still.