Well, hello, blogland! I've been trapped in a swirling vortex of travel, vacation, and drugs, but I return to you now on my first day alone since February 5th. OH LORD DO I NEED SOME ALONE TIME.
I had a fantastic time in New York City with my mom and sister. I was already completely exhausted before arrival, and as always, the city managed to wear me down to a tiny nub of myself before I made my escape back to the suburbs of the South. I'll do a more detailed NYC post later, with a focus on the incredible theater experience I had.
I was thrilled to have my mom return home to Charleston and stay with me for a few days, then Colby's grandma arrived, followed by his parents. So, for a few lovely days, we had a completely full house and finally managed to have all of our bedrooms filled at once. We squeezed in some time for touristy things, but a big focus for the week was getting all of the big projects done so that the house will be ready for MLS photos and hitting the market this weekend. Colby and his dad made some fantastic improvements, and all we have left is swiping some stain on the front steps, planting some flowers to up the curb appeal, and of course, my favorite part--cleaning the entire house. Ugh.
And perhaps most excitingly, I started my Lupron injections on the 7th and after a stellar baseline ultrasound and estrogen check on the 20th, added two other drugs (low dose HCG and Follistim to stimulate the follicles to produce awesome eggs) to my rotation. I inject the Lupron and HCG in the same syringe, so that's part of my morning routine, right between brushing my teeth and drinking my tea. The Follistim is in this crazy pen contraption, and I inject that every afternoon as a prelude to happy hour.
The Lupron injections weren't bad, but now that I'm adding in more stabs per day and injecting a larger amount of liquid, everything is starting to get a little more painful and a little bruisier. I've been doing the injections on my thighs thinking that the skin is a little tougher and maybe less sensitive, but I'm starting to run out of spots without little pinhole bruises, so I may have to transfer to my abdomen or upper arms at some point. Fortunately, my mom and Colby have made wonderful nurses, and so far no tears on my part, so things are okay.
FINALLY, drumroll please! The winner of the Alice Bliss giveaway is Molly from A Foreign Land!!!!! I'm so excited for you, Molly, and thanks for being patient with me. I had big plans for getting back to blogging after my NYC trip and that obviously didn't really work out. I'll email you about the shipping details. And thank you so much to everyone else that entered! I learned from this giveaway that jewelry is a much hotter commodity than books, but I hope you'll check out this book even if you didn't win. It really is a great story!


The first four miles were beautiful. We started at the top of East Bay and made our way around the peninsula, running through the historic downtown and along the beautiful battery. Fortunately, despite the cold, the sun was shining and it was truly a magical feeling knowing that all of my training had led up to this moment. Unfortunately, as documented here, I'd gone a long ten day stretch with no running at all, had only fit in three training runs in the week prior to the race (3 miles, 4 miles, and 5 miles) that had all been incredibly awful, and I was still coughing and feeling a bit of congestion in my chest, so the magic was not to last for long.











Saturday we had the pleasure of joining some friends of ours out on their boat for a full day at sea--at river? I don't know, the water was salty. Where ever we were, we saw TONS of dolphins capering in the water. At one point, we were front and center for a feeding frenzy as four dolphins went to town chowing down as fish parts, fins, and tails flopped and flew through the air. It was an amazing experience, and Colby even got to swim with the dolphins as a couple of fins were spotted during his turn wakeboarding.






Savannah





