A Day in the Life

So much happened yesterday. Wow!

At the Winter Walk in Northfield Thursday evening. Greta met Santa for the first time!

First, Work – As usual, for just 2.5 hours since I had my hours in for the week!

Then, a Run: 6 miles easy, 8:38 pace

I wanted to get in my 8-10 miles with 2 miles hard, but after picking up Craig, I realized that my legs were even more fried than I thought. We took the shortest path back to the church. Even 6 miles seemed long. Uff.

I decided to take tomorrow off, unscheduled. I want to get my legs back to where they are feeling great every day (or at least decent!). I’m not really training for anything in particular, so to continue to run this tired isn’t worth it.

Plus, I have the Jingle Bell 5k next weekend & want to give myself a chance to see where I’m at!!

I’m bummed because I was going to be able to hit up the track with Jeff, Craig, and Daniel. Oh, well. Next week!

Next I hopped in the car as I had an appointment in Woodbury with Dr. Bond (psychiatrist).

On my way, I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics to return some fabric that isn’t going to work inside a quilt I’m making for someone.

Returned it with THIS receipt, held together with 8 pieces of tape after Greta decided to eat it. The employees were so nice about it & somehow found a way to refund my $. Very cool since all of the important transaction info was chewed.

The inspiration for this woman’s quilt. I’m so excited to start piecing it together!

More inspiration she sent me. It’s going to be such a soft blanket – flannel on the front and minky on the back

Bought shoes – I was going to stop by Run N Fun to buy some new shoes. My current collection is showing its age since they are all still from my pro days.

Then I had a brilliant idea: look online to find older models! And, wa-hoo, I found two pairs of Brooks shoes for $105 at Norstrom Rack (click for the women’s Brooks selection)! I couldn’t come close to that with my race team discount at Run N Fun. I ordered the Ravenna and Launch (only $40!!).

Psychiatrist appointment – Where to start? My OBGYN had suggested looking at two other medications that are a little “safer” than Lithium.

Latuda – class B medication, meaning that no birth defects were shown in animal studies.

Lamictal – class C medication, which means that they really don’t know either way

Lithium is a class D medication because of the known heart defect risk (which is surgically repairable).

We talked at length about all options. Lamictal has been shown to cause cleft lip and palate. I never thought I’d be in a situation where I’d need to choose between potential defects…

Latuda sound like a great option, right? Except that it’s so new of a medication that there are only THREE studies done for bipolar disorder. Two studies showed it was an effective bipolar med, the other didn’t.

Both my doctor and I are comfortable staying on Lithium. I’d rather live with the “known” risk vs. the “unknown”… I will be off of it during the first trimester when the heart forms, weaning myself off of it the day I take a positive pregnancy test.

I will stay at 600mg (“normal” dose is 900mg -1200mg), even though my blood levels were .5 and the recommended range is .6 to 1. The current dose seems to be working – very well! – and we want to be on as low of a dose as we can when I start to taper off of it.

Interesting aside: if I were to quit taking Lithium (or any other bipolar med) suddenly, I would be at high risk for a manic episode. Interesting.

I am so happy to finally feel like I have medication under control! WA-HOOOO!!!!!!!

Complimentary tune up at Orthology – Hey, why not, right? Worth a try?

I was impressed! They are a combination of manual PT and chiropractic care. They worked on my hamstring insertion point and very tight left quad (compensating for that R hamstring). They also gave me some exercises (elevator “crunches”) for my rectus diastasis.

Arriving at Othology. It rained HARD all the way up to the appointment. Is this really December?

After noticing that my abs are still separated by 1.5 finger widths, they recommended checking out either/both of these DVDs. They’ve worked with a lot of women with the same problem, so that’s wonderful! It’s on my to-do list to find them at the library. I’d like to try them out before purchasing. If you don’t use your local library for things like this – or even to request new release movies! – you SHOULD! You are welcome for this ground-breaking life-altering savings tip.

Winter Walk in downtown Northfield – Then I drove back home, picked up Greta, and met Nathan for a wonderful evening downtown! Northfield shuts down the streets downtown and the shops have goodies, discounts, or fun Holiday happenings.

At the Cake Walk downtown. Greta was pretty excited about the rice krispie treats they gave away

She had quite the list to share with him!

Petting Zoo! Name the animal… miniature donkey? mule? giraffe? triceratops?

She LOVED the chickens!

The makings of a chicken farmer.

UCAN sent me a wonderful end-of-the-year package with a bunch of thoughtful goodies & samples of their new non-chocolate bar. It’s great! *Love Generation UCAN* If you’ve been meaning to try UCAN, take a look at my nutrition page & UCAN review. You can contact me for a special discount code too.