ACW Episode 248 – Karate Camp!

Webcomic!

Click on the pic to see it bigger!

At the beginning of the month, the whole family went to a 4-day karate camp in National Harbor. This was a major event, since 4 of the instructors there were from Okinawa, including the son of the current head of our style of karate. We did 3 hours of karate the first day, 6 hours on the second and third day, and by the fourth day we couldn’t move, so we didn’t.

I’m still sort of recovering from that camp. Of course, I had Girl Scout volunteer training all weekend, which has left me exhausted, and I’m trying to get ready for a kobudo (Okinawan traditional weapons) test this coming weekend. I am very, very tired.

ACW Episode “This is not a webcomic” – joint pain, priorities, and MEESMo

No webcomic today! Although I promise you there will be some fun cartoon art later down in this post.

But first, let me 'splain…

Over the past few months, I've been having increasing problems with joint pain. It actually started years ago, after I gave birth to the Princess and then had two knee injuries in a row. My knees hurt for months, but eventually the pain faded away to the occasional twinge when I went up and down the stairs. After Pixie was born, my knees began causing me so much trouble, I ended up going to a physical therapist for a couple months to strengthen them and reduce the pain. That seemed to help, and again, the pain faded away to the occasional twinge when heading up or down the stairs.

But the knee pain kept coming back, off and on throughout the years. I realized certain types of exercise – yoga, biking, swimming, water aerobics, and Wii Fit – seemed to keep the pain at bay. Other exercises – high impact stuff like running and karate – seemed to make it worse. I eventually gave up running in favor of water aerobics. As for karate, I started learning how to do things with as little impact on my knees as I could achieve (no more deep knee bends for this karate woman!). I figured it was osteo-arthritis, and it was only natural for a woman approaching her mid-forties to feel aches and pains in her knees from time to time.

Of course, there was also the occasional time when I'd come down with what I thought was the flu and I'd wind up stuck in bed for a day or so. Only I didn't have a fever… Or any congestion… Or any nausea… Or any other symptoms except aches and pains in my joints that put me under the covers with the heating pad for a while.

All of this was okay, though. The knee pain slowed me down a little, the flu-like days were a minor pain but nothing more, and none of it was enough to interfere with my daily life. Then last November I tore my meniscus and ACL in my right leg, and it was all downhill from there.

Let me say up front that I had a very successful reconstructive surgery and that my physical therapy, while it lasted months, did miracles for me. By the time March came around, I no longer limped and I could walk, swim, bike and hop on the elliptical with no pain. But during the months from January to March, I had a couple more instances of those flu-like days. When I went to see my orthapaedist, I told him it felt like I had sick knees; they felt feverish and achy and kept me in bed. The orthapaedist had no idea what it could be, since my knees seemed to be working just fine. He suggested I talk to a specialist, and I said I'd look into it.

I decided to start with a physical first. It had to be scheduled months in advance. The earliest date I could get was in November. Since I was back to normal activity, mostly, and had started easing back into karate classes, I wasn't in any hurry and I figured that was okay. Once the summer started, with all that warm weather, my knee problems mostly seemed to disappear. I was still recovering from the torn ACL, so it seemed natural to me to have problems getting up and down the stairs at the end of a long day. I was in the pool and on the bike with the kids everyday, too, so I expected to be tired. The girls learned to come downstairs to kiss me good night before they went to bed, so I wouldn't have to haul myself upstairs with my tired, aching knees.

And so it went, right through to September. Then sometime in that month, the back ache started. I developed this persistant pain in my lower back that dogged me all day and night. At first, I thought it was because our mattress was overdue to be flipped, so Hubster and I flipped it, but that didn't help. Then I thought the problem might be with our couch. I spend a lot of time there when I draw and crochet, and our couch is over 20 years old. I got some firm pillows to put against my back and made certain to sit with good posture, but that didn't help either.

The knee pain kicked in as well. And then the hip pain. And then the foot pain. That last was especially bad in the morning. In October, when my parents came to visit, I got the shock of my life when I got up early one morning and I met my mother in the hallway. We were both shuffling along with that same, painful, arthritic gate. Only my mom is in her late seventies and I still haven't hit 45 yet.

By that point, I was trying everything I could to get the joint pain under control. I ate gin-soaked raisins and took supplements of tumeric and fish oil and vitamin D. I swallowed huge capsules of OTC pain-relievers. I slept with my heating pad and took plenty of hot baths. I did yoga until I could bend myself completely in half without breaking a sweat. None of it worked.

Finally, November hit and I went in for my physical. I told the doctor everything. She ordered lots of blood tests and prescribed Gabapentin, which is an anti-seizure medication that also works with rheumatoid arthritis pain. I spent a week waking up completely loopy because of the medication I took the night before. When the blood test results came back, everything was normal.

So the doctor forwarded me to a specialist, who I will see in January. In the meantime I am doing everything I can to manage my symptoms. Some days I am so pain-free, I feel 15 years younger. Other days I am back in bed with the heating pad by 6PM. I've learned to pre-set my bed before I head out to pick up the kids from school in the afternoons. I gather up everything I know I'm going to need in the evening – paperwork, iPad, Surface tablet, crochet project, whatever I need to work on – and I lay it out on one side of the bed, along with a comfortable set of sweats or PJs. My work hours have been drastically reduced to 1-2 hours in the day and another 1-2 hours in the evening. I've learned to take advantage of the morning hours, when I have the most energy, for things like exercise and Girl Scouts paperwork (which is probably the most exhausting task I have to face on any given day). I try to save the evenings for drawing and crochet, activities that I can pick up and put down as needed whenever the girls need my help with their homework.

Because of the drain on my work hours, I've also found myself having to make decisions everyday about what I'm going to work on. Last week, I finally emailed the staff at our Girl Scout service unit and told them i needed to step down from the Volunteer Support Team and any committees I was on due to health issues. This weekend, I had to choose between taking a karate test for 4th degree black belt and cleaning the house (no way in hell were both of those tasks going to get done!). And I also had to choose between drawing today's webcomic and drawing a new Christmas card design, something I've been trying to get to for weeks now.

It's probably too late for this card to be done in time for anyone to buy it for is Christmas. I still have several hours of work left to do on it. BUT it will be done in time for any after-Christmas sales that Zazzle may do, so if you're the kind who likes to buy your Christmas cards on sale a year in advance, this one is for you.

(And this is the part where I show you that fun artwork I promised at the beginning of this very long post.)

Ta-DAA!

I'll do a big reveal on the final artwork once it's done and posted to Zazzle, but for right now, the point I really want to get across is this…

I am doing everything I can to draw as fast as I can to keep the webcomics coming. But there are other projects that I need to work on as well. I have a TON of evil greeting cards that I want to draw, and I have promised both my girls that I will illustrate two stories they've written (that's one story per child!) and get those stories epublished somewhere. If for some reason, I don't get the ACW webcomic up on time every Monday, I will at least post something that I'm working on, be it artwork from a greeting card or calendar or an illustration from one of the kids' stories. And you may see more single panel webcomics from me. Honestly, there are plenty of events that happen around me that would make perfect single panel cartoons, and I may even turn some of those into greeting cards as well, if they work out that way.

So what I'm saying is be patient with me. I'm going to see a doctor, and in the mean time I will keep plugging away as best I can. I will even eventually finish setting up the Etsy shop I started working on last month. It will all happen, slowly, over time.

I promise!

 

ACW 166 – Step Away from the Scale, Woman.

CWtoons_20120618_web

Click on the thumbnail above to see the full-sized webcomic!

I know there are some people out there right now who are rolling their eyes and thinking, “Who the hell is she kidding? She’s not fat!” To all you kind, kind people out there, thank you. Now convince my scale of that.

In all seriousness, the last month or so has been very hectic, just as hectic as the few months previous. In fact, I’m considering renaming the time period from January up through May as one extra-long month known as “Hectic.” Although maybe “Hell Month” would be a better designation. I did better this year in terms of keeping up with exercise. After last year’s “Hectic,” my blood pressure shot up thirty point and I had constant headaches. I didn’t want a repeat of that so I made sure to get in some sort of exercise everyday. But I also did what I usually do when I get stressed, and that’s eat. Because even though I know I shouldn’t, I use food to reward myself for surviving a really tough time. And when part of that tough time involves Girl Scout cookies… Well, you can figure it out.

Anyway, I am not really FAT, but I have put on some weight, more than is comfortable for me. And it’s not the number on the scale that bothers me so much as the way my clothes fit. I am very stingy when it comes to spending money on clothes for myself. I don’t like to pay a bazillion dollars for a new pair of jeans. I can recall back in college when I got sticker shock over buying jeans that cost me $20, and they don’t make jeans that cost a measly $20 these days! So I buy clothes that will last and then I do my best to make damn sure I’ll fit into them so long as they hold together. Those of you who have seen me know that I’ll even convert a favorite pair of jeans into a floor-length skirt, and while that’s partly because I love floor-length skirts, it’s also because I’m a damned tight-wad when it comes to buying new clothes.

(Unless it’s t-shirts from Threadless, but even then I wait for their $10 sales.)

So after I got over the shock of realizing that I’d packed on more than a few pounds on my rear-end, I got busy doing something about it. I made a few changes to my diet –  no more soda, a glass of wine only once a week, only one cup of coffee a day, water the rest of the day, two servings of fruit and/or vegetables at every meal, and if I’m absolutely dying for chocolate then I can make myself a big glass of chocolate soy milk rather than raid the pantry for a bag of M&Ms.

In addition, I’ve made an effort to exercise twice a day –  an hour in the morning at the Y and then another half hour or so in the evenings with the Wii. My copies of Just Dance have been dusted off and I’m making the kids get up and dance with me, which they only sort of hate. And if the Hubster comes home and finds us dancing, then he’ll join right in and that 30 minutes will easily become an hour or more as he and I compete to see who does the best Katy Perry imitation (I cannot stand it when he beats me at “California Girls”).

The results? In the last two weeks, a couple pounds have come off. Of course, I’m getting ready to go on another trip again, away from my beloved Y and my Wii, so I’m really going to have to be careful what I eat while I’m gone and make certain I get out and walk every day while I’m away. I don’t want to back-slide after two weeks of hard work. If you hear someone screaming obscenities at a scale, you’ll know I failed in that. But if you hear someone whoop it up as she beats her husband soundly in Just Dance, then you’ll know I succeeded in dropping another pound.

Anyway, have fun this week! I’m going to enjoy a glass of chocolate soy milk now.

Move It Mama Monday! Do the Holidays Weigh Heavy on You?

The Christmas holidays are here, and my parents have arrived with it. Naturally, I’m eating more and exercising less, and it’s not good for me. I’ve already got a massive headache that I think is related to drinking too much caffeine (my mom loves to go to Starbucks and my dad loves coffee and hot cocoa). And my stomach doesn’t feel so hot, because of all the high fat food I’ve ingested in the last couple days.

Obviously, I need to cut back. Doing so will be a bit of a challenge. The good news is, I did manage to get in a workout yesterday – Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout on the Wii, followed by a ten minute yoga podcast I bought from iTunes as a way of squeezing in a little extra stretching and toning over the week. But I’m going to have to step it up a bit more, and I don’t know how I’ll do that yet.

Maybe I’ll make it out for a bike ride this week. Or maybe I’ll do more Wii games and sweat it out. I dunno. But I do know I need to lay off the coffee and the fruit cake, ’cause my head and gut are killing me!

Move It Mama Monday! What will I do when I’ve walked out “Walk It Out”?

To quote Pepe Le Pew, “Le sigh!” I’ve gotten back to playing my fitness games on the Wii now that the weather’s turned cold, and I’ve come to a sad realization. One of my favorite games, Walk It Out, has no follow up game to play. And I’m really kind of bummed about that.

Walk It Out, if you haven’t seen it, is probably one of the simplest Wii fitness games out there. Using either a DDR mat, the Wii balance board, or the Wii nunchuk tucked in your pocket, you walk along to music while exploring a virtual island. That’s it, period. Well, you do accrue points as you walk, which you use to unlock various items on the island, like trees, buildings, a cafe, farmland, and even a giant airship, but basically, you just walk around the island. And I really love that.

I’m the kind of person who loves being immersed in video game settings, but doesn’t particularly care to hack and slash or shoot my way through a scene. Rune Factory is one of my favorite video games, even though I rarely play it, because I can spend an hour or two just running around talking to people and digging up farm crops and such. Of course, Rune Factory doesn’t require me to get my butt off the couch, but Walk It Out does, and that’s part of where my love for the game comes from.

I’m about 75% of the way through Walk It Out at this point, and will probably finish it soon. When that happens, I don’t know quite what I’ll do next. Konami, who released Walk It Out, apparently have no plans for a second game, even though I’ve seen rumors that the company who developed Walk It Out would love to do another one. I would love a chance to explore another virtual environment, and had hoped a new version of Walk It Out would include more exotic settings, either from around the world or straight from imagination. Can you imagine how cool it would be just to walk around on a space station on Mars? Or explore a steampunk city in Victorian England?

But it appears this is not to be. So what will I do when I’ve completed Walk It Out? Play it again from the start, most likely. That’s what a lot of fans seem to be doing. Just starting the game all over again from scratch. But I will keep my eyes out for a new game. After all, I do get bored, and I like to be entertained with new things.

I wish Konami realized that.

Move It Mama Monday! Thank Heavens for the Wii

I am very thankful for my Wii this week. Between the flu and the holidays, I didn’t get to do much of my usual exercise routine. I **did** exercise over the Thanksgiving break, but it was in the comfort of my in-laws’ living room, where Hubster set up our Wii. I did an hour of Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout (the boxing game I love so much) and another hour of Just Dance with Hubster and the kids. I’m sure my brother-in-law just loved watching the four of us bounce around the living room while he was trying to write his latest novel 😀

Once we returned, home, when the flu didn’t have me flat on my back, I did some Walk-It-Out with Pixie and more boxing. I did manage to get to the Y once, on Friday, and then took my first bike ride in a couple weeks yesterday. Both activities went well, which makes me feel good. It means that my Wii workouts let me keep up my endurance in spite of my break from the usual routine.

In fact, I think with the weather turning colder, the Wii will become part of the usual routine again. During the summer, it was easier to get out during the week to bike. Even though I promised myself I would not hibernate inside all winter, I still can’t seem to get myself outdoors to exercise. And with Girl Scout cookie season coming up, it may only get more difficult as things go. So I’m certain I’ll be relying on the Wii to keep my butt as jiggle-free as I possibly can. I may even look into getting a new fitness game, like Wii Zumba, just to mix things up.

Anyway that’s the fitness news for today! If you have any Wii workout games you’d recommend, let me know.

Speaking of news…

Cynical Woman has a Steampunk section in the Zazzle store!!!!!

Huzzah! I finally finished the steampunk themed artwork I’ve been slaving over all month and posted it in the Zazzle store. It was so good, I made it into Christmas cards, prints, stamps, a t-shirt and more! Plus all the other stuff is there too, including my Zombie Santa card! So pop on over and take a look. Zazzle offers sale codes on a regular basis, just look at the top of the page and you’ll see what the current special is. Support your local Cynical Woman and help her conquer the world of merchandising! Yay!

Move It Mama Monday! Turkey Trotting

Welcome back from the holiday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Are your stomachs bulging from all that turkey you ate? Mine would be, but I managed to sneak in some exercise. Yep, that’s right! Yours truly managed to work up a sweat, in spite of being out of town and it being a holiday involving lots of food.

I can thank my sister-in-law for this. We were up her and my brother-in-law for the holidays, and she had signed up to do SOME’s Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. I managed to get Hubster, the kids and myself signed up as well, so very early on Thanksgiving morning, we all went out to walk/jog the Tiny Turkey Trot (one mile) and then we did the full 5K Turkey Trot. And I learned something very important during these events, and that is…

No matter what you think you’ll be doing, always dress to run!

I expected the girls to walk just the 5K. Instead, they opted to do both events and they took off running right at the start, then continued to alternate between running and walking the entire distance of both courses. I was dressed in jeans and loafers. This was not an ideal running outfit. Now I know better for next year. I will wear running shoes and sweats, no matter what!

In addition to SOME’s Turkey Trot, Hubster decided to bring along the Wii and set it up at his parents place where we horrified/amused one of his brothers with bouts of Just Dance and Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout. Even though we were in a very cramped space, Hubster and the kids and I all managed to shake our groove thang without falling over any furniture. Though one time I did get a low-hanging wind chime tangled in my hair.

And there was the usual walking about. Unlike in my hometown, you can actually get to a number of places in DC just by walking, so we walked to the park and to the zoo. And since the Zoo was doing a night-time “Zoo Lights!” display, we walked all through that as well. Lots and lots of walking.

All in all, I got plenty of exercise in, and I managed not to eat too much turkey so I feel pretty good about myself. And in summary I would like to say that this Thanksgiving I was very thankful that I did not look like I did in the photos we found in my in-laws’ house where I was three weeks post-partum and I looked like Tippy the Whale.

Move It Mama Monday! I’m Slowing Down In Spite of My Good Intentions

I told myself I would get out and bike no matter what, at least twice a week, but that isn’t happening at the moment. I’m slowing down, taking it easy, being a bit lazy, devoting myself more to work than exercise right now. It’s partly due to the cold weather and partly due to my work and personal schedules. I really do need to spend more time working at my desk, so I’m stealing time from every other activity I’m involved in to make that happen, including working out. And it hasn’t helped that last week the Hubster was out of town, so I had my hands full taking care of the girls on my own. Our trip to the emergency room on Tuesday night just killed any chance I had of exercising on Wednesday. I did manage to make it to karate on Thursday though, and I made it to water aerobics on Friday, even though I got there late. But I haven’t put in nearly the same amount of time or effort exercising this week as I normally would.

We’ll see if I can turn that around, or at least stop my slide into sloth and indifference during the holidays. I told my sister-in-law we’d sign up for a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. She’s going to run the 5K course, while Hubster, the kids and I walk it (my running days are over, thanks to my bum knees). It’ll be good to get out and walk in the brisk morning air then go home and eat all that food afterwards. And since we will be away in DC all the rest of this week, Hubster has mentioned taking the Wii with us so we can work out as a family at my in-laws house. That’s a good idea I think.

Hopefully, I’ll get back into my groove again soon. We’ll see.

My family and I are in DC most of this week. If I was very good on Friday, I got all my blog posts for this week done in advance, so there won’t be any missed posts. If not, you know what happened! I hope you all Happy Turkey Day, folks.

Move It Mama Monday! Exercise with Family

My schedule’s been driving me crazy lately so I’ve had to make some decisions about what I can and can’t do any more, especially in the area of exercise. I’ve been taking karate classes for years, and I still enjoy it, but with my freelance picking up this past year and with two kids in school, I no longer have the time to spend two days a week in the dojo. When I go, it’s a 3-hour deal – half an hour to get dressed and get over there, two hours of class, and another half hour to come home and change again. I only get 6 hours during the day to work and one of those goes to things like lunch, showering, making phone calls, etc., so going to class for 3 hours pretty much kills my work day. And I’ve had the same problem with taking long bike rides and other physical activities – anything longer than an hour eats into my precious work time.

But I still need to exercise, so what to do?

Exercise at a time when I’m not supposed to be working, of course. But that means exercising when the kids are around, so anything I do will have to include them.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t given up exercising on my own. I still go to karate once a week, I still bike a couple hours a week, I still go to water aerobics twice a week. But I need extra work out time, so if I want it, I’m going to have to do it with the kids. To that end, I’ve started doing things like playing outside with them, or gardening in the yard while they ride their bikes and scooters in front of our house. And on Fridays, I take them to the pool at the Y.

This has to be the best part of the whole deal. I’ve been dying to get Pixie into swim lessons. Problem is, she hates taking the lessons. However, if I go in the pool with her, she’s happy as a lark. So rather than fight her over formal lessons, we just go to the pool together and use the open rec area. She’s actually taught herself how to doggy paddle, and I get to bounce around and tread water while she swims from the wall to me and back again. It’s a win-win scenario.

And Princess loves this too. She loves taking swimming lessons, but since she can swim pretty well, she’s not going to complain if we go to the pool just to go to the pool.

I’m still looking at other things we can do together that everyone will enjoy. I do have to be careful about my knees, so things like running races with the kids isn’t an option. But we can garden together, or I can do yardwork and they can play. And we can go on walks together and do other things together. And we can even do some Wii Fit together.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in the wonderful world of exercise at la casa de Madden. Drop me a line if you can think of anything I could do with the family that I haven’t thought of yet!

Move It Mama Monday! Fighting the Urge to Hibernate

I’m blogging on the fly today, so forgive any typos. It’s been a busy autumn so far, and the temperature around here has started to drop. I’ve had enough chilly days to make me invest some money in new biking gear – cold weather tights, gloves, and neoprene booties to slip over my Vibram shoes. I hate being cold, so I’m doing my best to stay warm, but I’m also fighting the urge to stay indoors, and that’s very hard.

I like to hibernate when the weather turns chilly. I like to curl up on the couch with a hot cup of tea and look out the window knowing I don’t have to be out there unless I want to be. However, this isn’t the healthiest attitude to have, so I’m going to force myself this fall and winter to get out at least once each week, twice or more preferably. Once my biking gear comes in, I should be okay to ride. I’ll still have to ride against the wind every time I go out, but at least I should be warm. And maybe if I can find the time, I’ll get outside a couple afternoons each week and work on the yard. I don’t have to spend hours outside, just 30 minutes or so will do the trick.

But it’s going to be hard. Believe it or not, I’ve got a lazy streak a mile wide and it’s most likely to rear its ugly head when the days turn cold and dreary. We’ll see how well I fight against it this year.

Anyone else have plans to get outside this fall and winter? Let me know how you do it!