Oooh I dread going back to work tomorrow after such a nice long break. There are really not enough Thurs/Fri holidays in the year. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a great weekend. It started with getting out of work early on Wed, which is always nice! Thursday morning I met Sara for a frozen 6 mile hill run at South Chagrin reservation. Then G and I headed to his dad's house for turkey day. That night we chilled out and watched a movie with the dogs, The Golden Compass, it wasn't very good. Friday I ran a bunch of errands while G was working and got a lot of Xmas presents done. I also took the puppy to Petco to work on his confidence (This puppy is a nervous nelly), he pooped in my car on the way there and puked on the way home, fun, fun! That afternoon Sara and I went to see the move Twilight. It was laughably horrible and I was hugely disappointed as I loved the book series. Friday night we went to a fundraiser for the family of one of G's friends that passed away. Sat we started the day with puppy class. Little Fonzie was the best behaved dog there, no jumping and barking and wigging out. He just leaned against our legs and took it all in. A few people commented on how jealous they were of how good our pup was, little did they know, he's great, until left alone, hello separation anxiety, although hes doing much better. This morning I met Sara and Sherri and North Chagrin and we had a muddy 5 miler then breakfast at YT. That was super fun, I hadn't seen my friend Sherri in way too long. Then Sara and I went to see another movie (yes I love movies!) Four Christmas', it was really cute and I enjoyed it. Now I am sitting here getting ready to finish up my book club book (Falling Through the Earth) and hanging with the pups, dreading going to work, ugh.

Well we have a modest baby and it didn’t want to show off it’s stuff today. So, we have no idea what we are having despite an hour long u/s today. Oh well, I can’t be too disappointed, all the limbs and fingers & toes were there. Baby opened its mouth and closed it for us and the brain, spine and organs look good. The baby sure is crammed in there. To me it looks like it has really long legs and big feet, just like daddy, but what do I know! It was fun to see the baby for that long, but frustrating that we didn’t get to find out.

Hi Bloggy friends! We are getting a snowstorm here in Cleveland today. Boo. We are supposed to get about a foot before the end of the day. My commute to work was no issue, but going home sure will be. I am dog sitting for a friend Fri – Mon and she lives right in the snowbelt. So I am in for a hell of a weekend b/c I will have to go back and forth between her house and mine a lot due to the puppy and Gary’s weekend work schedule. I am not anticipating the next few days being very fun!

On the puppy front; Fonzil really is a sweet dog and I know things will be fine, but the housebreaking isn’t going too well. He also seems to have some anxiety induced crate pooping which will be a big issue once Gary is back to his normal work schedule and the poor pup is stuck in the crate for 7 hours. But we are doing what we can to work through it.

I am still sick and just can’t even believe it. Although I am better than I was for sure. My real problem is that I get up with the puppy in the middle of the night, which is fine, but I cannot fall back asleep. I do not know if it’s due to my cold, or the pregnancy or what it is. But it’s making me feel pretty damn run down. I didn’t work out Tues or Wed, but I wanted to redeem this week, so I pulled out my slim in six DVD last night and did the 45 min DVD. It’s actually a great workout, lots of lunges, squats and pushups. I am sore today. I plan to run Sat & Sun for sure. My running has really taken a hit this last month.

I am going to see Twilight this weekend and am totally geeked. Yes I am a child.

Finally the cold cloud is lifting. This morning I CAN BREATHE!!! I am so happy. I still feel cruddy, my throat is raw and I'm kind of weak, but I feel like I am on the mend! Getting up with the puppy in the middle of the night probably isn't helping me too much. He is so cute though, such a little stinker and Musi is so funny with him. Fonzi just follows him around like his shadow, he's in love.

I felt guilty for not working out in awhile. I only worked out 3 times last week :( So, last night I did the weights routine from my tri book since I didn't feel like braving the weather and heading to the gym. When you have a little puppy you feel bad leaving them at night b/c you are away all day. SO, I might have to get creative with my workouts for awhile. Tonight I am going to dust off my old fav Slim in Six aerobics DVD. Exciting I know, but I want to try and work out everyday this week, just not very high intensity. 30 mins a day, nothing major, then when I feel better, I will work on getting my time back up.

Here is the latest edition to our family, Fonzi. On the cold front, I am still miserably sick, and can't take any medicine. Ugh. Workouts are not happening since I cannot for the life of me breath out of my freaking nose.

Well I was doing pretty well until yesterday afternoon. It started as a slight trickle in my throat. I woke up this morning feeling like I have strep throat or something. I feel awful, awful people! I have a headache, I am stuffed up, my throat hurts and my stomach feels gross. Yet I came to work, I totally should have stayed home today, what was I thinking! But I only have 1 available day the whole rest of the year to have off and I'm scared to use it up!

I have been able to get some workouts in since I vowed to start over. I had a nice 6 mile hill run on Sat and a swim on Sunday. Last night I went to the gym and did 10 mins on the hellish stair climber (not the stepper, the kind that has the actual stairs on a rotation) and 20 on the arc trainer, then lifted weights. My legs are sore this morning from the stairs. I hate that machine, but boy it hurts so good.

I didn't make it up for a morning workout either yesterday or today. I may just have to come to terms that those are out of the question. I set my alarm, I try to get up, but I just feel like a ragdoll. It stinks b/c I used to be a morning person. Tonight I will swim and hopefully get in a short run, but its cold out there!

I am actually going to blog about a workout! I went swimming last night. I only did 1000 yards, but it was enough. It took me about 30 mins, but that consisted of some kick board and breast stroke too and breaks of course. It wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. I haven't totally forgetten how to swim, thank goodness.

Okay I can’t bear to look at his little sweet face every time I open my blog, so it’s time for a new entry. The week of vacation was very active. I ran a half mary and did a ton of walking and hiking. Since I got back from vacation, I have ran once and that is it! AHHHH. I hate to even say it out loud. It is beyond time for me to get my ass in gear. It’s more important than ever that I stay in shape now that I am preggo. I have some very inspiring ladies blogs that I read that have worked out their entire pregnancies. I need that to be me! I want to be able to rebound from this baby quickly and be back on my bike and running within weeks. In order to do that I must keep up my workouts. But lets face it I am pregnant and it’s harder to get moving, plus the gray and gloom of winter will be setting in soon, so I am making a schedule for myself and my goal is to hit 5 of these workouts. As long as I hit 5 I will not feel bad, if I hit more, awesome. I think I can always make Sat & Sun and it will be more enjoyable to run those days b/c I will see daylight, I hope to always make all 3 of the runs (2 around 4 miles, one at least 6) and then at least one spin and one swim. I haven’t swam in a REALLY long time and it’s time to get my toosh in gear with that. I want to get back up in the yardage by end of Nov and then hopefully hit a masters class in Solon once a week. I will do weights after spin class & also try and get one weight session in weekly while watching tv. I am going to keep a tally in my sidebar starting next week to keep me honest. So today is Thurs, think I will hit the pool if I can fit into my bathing suit!!! I need to order a new one online stat.

Mon – AM Spin class/weights
Tues- Run & swim
Wed- Run
Thurs- longer swim
Fri- Spin class/weights
Sat- long Run
Sun- Run & yoga

Last year over memorial day weekend I went to Lake Placid for a weekend workout on the Ironman course. The same group is going back next year, but this time in June. I really want to go, really bad. But is it crazy to think that 2 months post partum I could be ready to bike the 56 mile course of Lake Placid??? I really want to be able to do a fall marathon and be a kickass buff mom. I look at people like TriSaraTops and know it is possible. I tend to border on extreme working out and no working out. I don’t have much of a happy medium. I need to find it until this baby is out!

I’ll say it loud and say it proud. I walked into Canterbury Elementary school this morning at 7:45 am to no lines and stepped up and voted for my man Obama. What an exciting day in history. I know I am officially old b/c I care about this election. I know there are a lot of negative things you could say about Obama, mostly about him being too green for this job, but I just truly like him. I think he comes off as classy and intelligent and articulate. He cares about the things I care about energy and education. I don’t think John McCain is horrible, but I think Sarah Palin is and I wouldn’t for a moment want her one step near the white house. One day Howard Stern said that the whole Sarah Palin thing sounded like a bad Disney movie – Hockey mom through a series of events ends up president – and I can totally picture that movie. When McCain first picked her, I thought WOW smart move, what a classy looking lady. But boy when she opened her mouth, ouch. Okay, enough about my political feelings. Go Obama. I will be on pins and needles all day waiting for the results.

I went for a run this weekend. The first time since the half marathon (yikes!!) and it felt really good. But I have been so tired and stressed out with Tai being sick that workouts have fallen by the wayside. I don’t see that getting better until this ordeal is over. But when it is I have to get back on the horse, so to speak.

It is a very sad time in the Nowac household. Taiko is not doing well and will likely not make it. He is still fighting though, he’s not ready to go. I gave him sub Q fluids, the poor man’s dialysis, all weekend and they didn’t affect his levels at all. Today I made the hard decision to leave him at the vet’s office all day for them to do a more aggressive flush on his kidney’s. It was a hard decision b/c he is really sick and gets stressed easily. He doesn’t like going to the vets and it broke my hear to lead him into that cage and turn and walk away. He doesn’t understand. And they are going to pull him out of the cage, muzzle him and wrestle him until they are able to get an IV in his leg. They already did this once last week and the IV didn’t stay in. I sooo hate to put him through it again, but it’s our last hope. And it might be too late. To some people dogs are just that, animals that live in your house. To me they are family members and Tai being sick is like my child being sick. I am so sad, I can’t stop crying. I hate having to be at work, I want to just stick by him and rub his back and wipe his mouth when he vomits. I will likely have to put him down soon and I can’t even type that without tears welling in my eyes. But he’s not ready yet, his eyes are still clear, he can get up and down the stairs and he still wags his tail and gets excited to go for a walk. Once he doesn’t come to the door when I get home or want to go for a walk, then we’ll know it’s time.