Quote of the day

On the subject of heavy bleeding during perimenopause, Joanna wrote in the comment section of a guest post on Bitch Ph.D.:

My doctor did explain that the little arteries in the uterine lining that were waiting for a hormonal signal to curl back up and shut off the bleeding were not getting that signal, and that the progesterone (or other hormonal treatments) were designed to get them to do that. This helped remove some of the anxiety. She also said "your uterine lining is a little disorganized right now." I thought I should put a sign with that on my office door.

Why did no one ever give me this explanation? Though I still intend to try to wait it out without hormones.

black and white photography

I'm close to committing to setting up a darkroom at home, my daughter and I are having so much fun in the course. My best print from last night (from the roll of film I developed myself last week):

details, details

My son has not been turning in all of his homework, so we went up to his boarding school (just an hour and a half away) and took him out to dinner to express our concern. We stopped by the nurses office afterwards because I was concerned about his case of poison ivy, and discovered that his after dinner medication had been marked as "take as neeed" instead of "take every day there is study hall." If asked my son has a pretty good idea of when medication will help him, but he doesn't have enough forethought about it to go to the nurses' office if he can avoid it. I just feel lucky it didn't take us longer to figure out that problem.

lists

"You know you are a triathlete when..." lists are cropping up on my email group. But the one I want to achieve is:

You know you're a triathlete when you put more miles this summer on your bike than on your car.

I rode almost 1,000 miles this summer (May-August), but I put 9,000 miles on my car between March and August. I will increase my biking next year when my goal is a half ironman race, but I am going to have to also drive less.

darkroom

I did a lot of photography in high school, not only in the school darkroom but I set up my own darkroom at home. When I got to college I tried to get into a photography class, but I got more or less laughed at when I took my portfolio to the professor to apply for the course, so that was the end of that.

Last year I took photography 1 and 2 with my daughter--since she is 13 she can take courses at the community college's extension program if I take them with her. I liked the teacher, but it was a long evening once a week and I learned almost nothing I didn't already know. Last night I got my reward.

The next course started last night: Black and White Photography. We got into the darkroom and developed our own film. We played with the enlargers but didn't actually make prints yet. I love it. I wondered if I would still be able to wind film onto a developing reel in total darkness--I thought maybe that knowledge was still in my fingers. It was--I did it smoothly on the first try.

I think maybe I should have been a chemist. I'm not particularly talented at taking pictures, but I do love the darkroom. My daughter thought it was really fun. Next we will look for the box of my old darkroom equipment that may still be in our attic. The plan right now is just so she can practice winding film onto the developing reel, but we are going to be tempted to set it up (and we have a halfway decent place--a basement room with no windows though non-light tight doors, laundry sink in the next room right by the door). The nice thing about black and white photography is that unlike almost everything else, the technology has hardly changed in 30 years. But I don't have time...

not a holiday, but not bad

We don't get Monday holidays, except Martin Luther King day, so I had to teach today. But my daughter had the day off and it was a break not to have an hour's drive at the beginning of my day. I ran later than usual and did my long run (6 1/2 miles). Tired legs when I started my short bicycle commute to campus, but I've gotten into the bike commute and don't want to take my car if I can possibly avoid it. It is only about a mile, so not significant exercise, but I figure it is good for my leg muscles to have that regular push.

Saturday swim practice

When I first joined the swim team the practices for the masters team (adults) were Tuesday and Thursday 5:45-7:15 am and Saturday morning. But I never went on Saturday. When I first started I was told a cautionary tale about a youngish man who started swimming with the masters but then never came back again after he showed up on a Saturday and got whupped by the 9 year olds. I also knew that at most the masters had one lane on Saturday morning, and it is a strain to circle in one lane with people much faster than me (on weekday mornings we are often only two to a lane, or at least divided up into three lanes by speed). Later the masters went to practicing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5:30 to 7:00 am.

But our new acting coach can only do two mornings a week until high school swim team season is over. With the turmoil of losing a coach and the different kids groups not all started back up yet, I heard that no kids showed up for Saturday practice last week, just three or four adults. Saturday practice is 7:30 to 9:30 am in the pool and then dry land--weight training in the gym. The coach had some core exercises he wanted to show me, so I rearranged my weekend plans slightly to be able to go to Saturday swim practice this week. It was the first time I had ever gone on a Saturday.

There were three adults and two kids--we each had a lane to ourselves. And this coach much more than the other has us each doing different things depending on our level. Two hours is a lot of swimming, but he has me going easy and working on form, so it wasn't too difficult. The hardest set I did was 100 yards of four different drills, 100 free building speed, then 50 hard, repeated 4 times. And I'm getting used to the coach, who is louder (and more of a toucher) than the previous coach. My only previous experience with being coached is when I was on a women's sailing team in college--being told what to do and what I am doing wrong as intensely as a swimming coach does takes some getting used to.

Then I changed to go up to the gym and immediately discovered a problem. I've literally never worked out in a gym--I didn't know I needed closed toe shoes. I felt pretty stupid. The coach decided that my sandals would have to do, and reassured the staff person supervising the room that I wouldn't be working with any of the weight machines. Instead he had me catching and throwing a 6 pound ball while lowering myself partway backwards on an incline bench and then doing something he called a donkey kick with my feet on a stability ball. I'm sore today but I actually was reasonably pleased with what I could do. Swimming (with lots of butterfly kicking) has strengthed my core a lot from what it was.