four to six weeks down!

I'm feeling pretty good tonight. My all-school art show is DONE! I had a tough two weeks with the all-district show last week (I took home top honors in ceramics! A first prize and two honorable mentions! I also took an honorable mention in painting.) In a separate art show for the district my students won cash prizes for overall 3rd place seventh grader, and an overall 2nd place for 8th grade. I did well! Now I can start to really focus on winding up the school year (and planning for next year!)

I was pretty excited the other day because I discovered one of our local rec centers has a current channel/lazy river and I noticed it said "Water Walking" on Monday and Wednesday mornings from 6-7 a.m. I tried the water walking my coach recommended but it hurt my ribs too much. I was so excited to try water walking in this environment instead!

Now keep in mind, I'm not a morning person--but I did it, I got up at the butt crack of dawn... And a strange thing happened... I liked it! The sun was up (I think that makes all the difference in the world) a slight chill is in the air, but you know it's going to warm up, and the birds were chirping. It reminded me of an early triathlon morning!

Until I got to the pool.... No triathletes in that mix. Turns out water walking is a class. And not to take anything away from the nice ladies in the class--heck, they got up early to do some exercise, so I give the gals some credit! Unfortunately they were doing a lot of hopping, spinning and dancing in the direction of the current. A workout that I had to seriously question the caloric burn tally... But it took effort for them to get there, so like I said, kudos to them for getting out there and trying something. I noticed the class wasn't listed for every day, so I figured I try the water walking thing in the current channel another time.

So I went back yesterday during the "open swim" time at 6 a.m. I still enjoyed the early morning bird songs and sunrise! Maybe I could do this getting up early thing afterall....? Nah... Who am I fooling? There were two other women in the channel with me. One walking with the current and a buoy thing as seen above, and another switching directions and hopping along with her buoy thing. I think she was practicing for the water walking class the following day. I just walked against the current. I tried to run a few times, but the floor of the channel was slippery and I was afraid I'd slip and fall, chip a tooth, and look like a hillbilly school teacher without a dental policy.

Speaking of dental, my tooth pain is going away, so I think my antibiotics are working! Sinus junk is doing better. Looks like I'll be running soon!!!!!!!! Still not so sure about the swimming. The ribs still flare up on me.

I was looking at a calendar tonight and got happy. Do you know it's now been a full six weeks since I was diagnosed with pneumonia? And four weeks since I had the memorable coughing fit that I think caused all the rib problems. And I'm starting to feel better! It's been a long 4-6 weeks (it really does feel waaay longer than that) but I may just be hitting the end of that road. Yahoo! Time to chart a new path! Ironman, I'm after you!!!