Monday Night, 3.1 Miles

Sometime around Thanksgiving I started going for walks at night as a method of relieving the pain of my heel spurs. In a gross fit of irony, God saw fit to bequeath to me the same heel spurs my mom has. They started bothering me about two or three years ago, and I tried various methods to decrease or relieve the pain, from soaking my feet to elevating them to various creams, rubs, ointments, and pain relievers. Not much worked. The one thing that did work, oddly enough, was walking -- and walking a lot.

So I marked off three walking courses from the apartment and back. If I walk north along the street our apartment is on to the local Walgreen's and back it's 3.1 miles round trip, which was our trip tonight for me and Samantha the Dog. We like that route because it involves walking up a fairly steep graded hill about half a mile from the apartment (just enough distance to get a good stretch in the legs), then walking the next half mile uphill, then another 0.6 miles down the other side. When we reach Walgreen's, we turn around and re-ascend the hill for 0.6 miles, back down for half a mile again, and half a mile home. Tonight we ran most of that last half-mile, which Samantha particularly likes because she feels like a vicious wolf creature when she runs with her hair in the wind.

Or so I've heard.

The diabetes is fairly well under control. For some reason my pharmacy shorted me 75% of my glyburide medication to control my blood sugars, so I ran out last Thursday. I just got the replacements in the mail today -- during this last weekend my sugar was never higher than 174, and usually in the 130's to 140's in the morning, with normal (90's or so) reading before meals. I guess the "eating healthy" thing is working our pretty well. Ariane has lost almost 50 pounds since Thanksgiving and a good 2 inches from her waist -- and she tells me 2 whole sizes. I've lost about 10 pounds and 3+ inches from my waist.

The best part was buying a new, smaller belt today at Wal-Mart. (Deep sigh of satisfaction here.) What a great feeling.

Julian continues to be Julian. After his 1st-place performances at State (UIL) as an individual, his orchestra followed up with 1st-place performances just before Spring Break. He's pretty much assured 1st Chair next year, but he may not take Orchestra
to concentrate on his medical and language studies. (He's still going to take private lessons, though.) His pre-Spring Break trip to Mexico went very well. He managed to come back in one piece without Montezuma's Revenge (unlike a couple of his compatriots) and even named a few of the rats he met there.

Yeah, you read that right. He named the rats. Yup -- he's my boy.

~~JD~~