The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, & the Super-freaking-Duper!

The Good
You all have helped breathe new life into my self esteem.  Instead of picking at everything, I'm trying to look at the overall (really good) picture.  I'm fitting solidly in size 14s and L or XL shirts.  I'm quickly approaching uncharted territory and it feels darn good!  Thank you all for helping me navigate!

The Bad
Over my first year banded, I would get stuck, slime, PB...all that fun stuff.  I always knew right away when I wasn't going to be able to get something down.  As I start the second year, things have changed.  I rarely slime or PB.  I know part of that is better habits.  But I think other things have changed too.  Instead of sliming/PB, I get heartburn. I don't realize that there is an issue until much later.  Like Band Groupie, I'm very concerned about sustained acid reflux, so I'm keeping an eye on it.  Don't get me wrong, sliming was horrible, so I'm not sure this is a bad, bad thing.  But at least with my old symptoms, I knew right away there was an issue and I miss that.  We will see what other things change as I move along.

The Ugly
Darling Nikki (Chasing Skinny), you have been talking and I have been responding, but I obviously wasn't truly listening.  I have felt kinda crappy the last couple of days.  I wasn't sure why, but I was tired, had more heartburn than normal, I felt hungry more, etc.  So, not real SICK symptons, just crappy.  Last night at Jazzercise, I was telling BFF about it and mentioned that I might be a little dehydrated.  Second song into the class, I started to feel like something was poking me in the belly (below the band...more where my port is located) and I was feeling flush.  BFF is the instructor, and I knew running out in the middle of a song would freak her out, so I made it to the end of the song then rushed to the bathroom.

There was nothing actually poking at me, but the pain existed.  I was super hot and super cold at the same time.  Suddently in my obviously not-holding-it-together state, I thought that my port had come loose and was attacking my body from the inside!  I started having a panic attack.  I'm not even joking.  So anyway, I'm pretty good at mind over matter and I started to calm myself down and think.  I realized that I was REALLY hot, but I wasn't sweating.  Since you can normally ring out my shirts by mid-class (I'm a sweater), that was strange.  Then it hit me...I was TOTALLY dehydrated.  I immediately began to calm down and I drank a bunch from the water fountain.  I had to take a ton of breaks during the class, but I made it through.

I got home and drank quite a bit and felt SO much better this morning, I can't even tell you.  My new goal is to drink a bottle of water every morning on the way to work.  I will try and drink more as well, but that is an easy one to make sure I get at least a minimum amount in early!  That was a stupid way to learn that lesson.

The Super-freaking-Duper!
I love the USA Mens Volleyball team.  Specifically, I'm slightly in love with star opposite Clay Stanley.  (Pardon the 13 year old girl in me.  She comes out a lot.) 

I became obsessed during the 2008 Olympics during their gold medal run.  In 2009, we realized after the fact, that the team gets together each year for World League and World Cup play.  We missed some games not too far away from home!  So, in 2010 we kept our eye on it and went to Wichita for a couple of games.  We had SO MUCH FUN in Wichita and looked forward to going back this year.

Fast forward to last week, they FINALLY announced a couple of US host cities for this summer's games and Wichita wasn't chosen.  Bummer.  But Tulsa (even closer!) was.  WOOHOO!  But the games scheduled in Tulsa are the same weekend as our Jazzercise Vegas convention.  Damnit.  I was seriously upset!  Not that I'm not going to go to the Jazzercise convention.  It will be fun.  But to miss my Vball team???

One of the teams in USA's pool is Puerto Rico.  So I insisted to BFF that we were going to San Juan.  She mostly ignored me.  Heh.  I've been pricing tickets and it was going to easily hit a couple grand for us to go.  :(  Big fat bummer.  But I didn't lose all hope just yet.

Fast forward just a little more to yesterday.  I was listening to a CPE webinar (BORING!), so I was doing a little on-line research at the same time.  USA Volleyball hadn't announced anything yet, but the International organization FIVB had just issued a press release with all of the match information for World League play.  The final US city to host games was Long Beach, CA.  Crap.  Tickets to LAX are going to be just as expensive as to San Juan.  Why can't Texas host some volleyball??  Anyway, for grins, I checked it out and was THRILLED to find out that I was wrong.  Tickets are $99 each way.  And Travelocity had a package deal with a 4 star hotel so for $450 each, we have round trip tickets and FOUR nights in a super nice hotel in Long Beach!!!

If that isn't enough, 3 of my favorite cousins live in Long Beach and I'm going to get to hang out with them.  Everything just so fabulously fell into place and I'm so excited!  It will be a holiday weekend, so I doubt we do Disneyland or anything like that.  But there is SO MUCH to do in the area that I know we will have an absolute blast.  I know that I just spent a lot of words on getting to go to a volleyball game, but it just made my entire summer.  :)

Have a wonderful weekend, y'all!

HUGS!