(no subject)

Hmm. I only got one hour of sleep last night. I was a bit stressed, but still, this seems excessive. (Oh, and I don't mean "I tossed and turned all night long" I mean "I tossed and turned and vaguely dozed for an hour, and the rest of the time I was wide awake.) Oddly, I'm neither especially tired or especially jittery. I'm kind of expecting I'll crash hard later...

Meanwhile, storage foods and barley stuffed pumpkins. Why don't people cook more with barley? Barley is yummy.

Barlotto

Barlotto Stuffed Pumpkins

Barley is a grain too seldom used, mild and creamy in texture, it is a good foil for many hearty winter foods. The pumpkins described here are small pie pumpkins, measuring about four inches across -- pumpkins are not the best storage squash, but these little pumpkins are available each year from our local organic farmer's stand, and make for particularly attractive presentation. If they are not available near you, halved and seeded delicata or acorn squash also works well. These should be baked at 350, cut side down, for at least half an hour or until just tender before being stuffed, for their thicker walls will not quickly bake through after stuffing.

( Barlotto )

(no subject)

Okay, article off and I ran for wushu. First drill section I attended... and boy was that fun! Since we're in the smaller space it's all focused on strength and flexibility work, refining stances and simple combinations. And at an hour long it's just right -- I leave all pepped up and bouncy (yes, despite only and hour of sleep -- though I did pick up a Thai Iced Tea before class) instead of sore and frustrated. I'm also just doing physically better.

Of course, tomorrow there's another section 5-6, before my three hours of Sword and Chen.

And I really want to go.

But I don't know if it's a good idea. (Shifu actually told me last week she thought it would be a bit much yet -- but then, that was before I mostly didn't sit out of classes. I really am doing better.)

I'll see how I feel. It's foolish, but very tempting. But I'll be pretty annoyed if I tweak my SI joint and end up limping through Chen. Which is, after all, more important to me than wushu. (If less generally entertaining just in terms of what's going on in the class. But I'm tossing around the idea of competing again... More in sword at the moment than in Chen, but really either.) If I do all the drops in Sword I can give the whole SI region a pretty good workout as it stands.

Darn, I wish the little finger on my right hand would stop going to sleep.

Oh, and while I wasn't quite hallucinating on the drive home, the image parser in my brain wasn't really working right, so it was sending my odd misinterpretations of images all the way back. Where the corner of a truck becomes a horse, or things like that. I do feel a bit tired, but not really that tired... but I think I will go to bed soon.

(no subject)

Okay, I'm not going to get this done tonight, but just so I don't forget about it --

I need to make a spreadsheet to keep track of exercises on my PDA. In fact, it should have three sections -- weights, PT exercises, and forms, because I also could use to get a bit more methodical about making sure I practice all of my forms. There are kind of a lot of them...

I just went through most of my old weight routine! plus a couple of things my PT suggested. There are still one or two that are hitting the torn muscle in my arm, one that I avoided altogether and a couple that I'll see how the muscles in question feel tomorrow. That felt really good. I'm mostly a step or two down on weight, and only doing single sets (which I often do) and not really going until completion until I know how much body is going to handle this. But still, cool beans.

PT exercises continue to get weirder. Monday found me -- and I'm not making this up -- standing on the flat side of a wooden hemisphere (with it's round side on the floor) on one leg, and throwing a weighted ball at a small trampoline that was set at a 45 degree angle and then catching the ball.

Then we did the obstacle course. But that was too easy, so I got to do the obstacle course doing a five second single legged squat on each segment. (Which was still easy, except for one piece, which I then played with on it's own -- strangely, at the moment I have better lateral stability on my right ankle than on my left. Who'd've thunk it?)

Then I got to do deep squats while standing on a hard foam cylinder. (Actually, I need to work up to deep one legged squats, but not until I get better ankle flexibility.) With the added benefit of having one of the PTs I don't know see me, and remark to the aide I was working with that my form was excellent, and was she sure I was broken? ("Oh, yeah, see, she does all these martial arts.") Go me.

See? the wonders of modern medicine.

Oh, and I'm kind of thinking of doing a quick overnight backpacking trip next Monday or thereabouts -- probably not a long hike, mostly an equipment check and a check to see if my body likes the thermarest I got it. I'll see how I'm doing and how the weather's doing...