Like falling upside down

2004-01-18 - 2:16 p.m.

Today my parents decided to buy a new toilet to replace the old one in their bathroom. Apparently the shut-off valve to the toilet also needed to be replaced. Do you know what that means? It means they had to shut off all the water to the house while they fixed it. It means I couldn't go to the bathroom all day. And let's just say that today was not a good for me to be without a bathroom. I don't know, maybe it was psychological, knowing that I couldn't go made me need to go even worse. Everytime they discovered they needed something else or had bought the wrong part at the hardware store, I volunteered to go just so I could use the bathroom at the store.

But anyway, yesterday we went to Yosemite. Last year when we went to Yosemite we got pulled over by a park ranger for speeding while my dad was driving. This year my dad was totally paranoid and we crawled the whole time we were in the park. I guess that park ranger accomplished his goal of getting my dad to slow down. There was less snow in the park than I expected/hoped, but there was some snow. It wasn't too cold and the weather was beautiful. I couldn't have asked for better weather. We walked up to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. It's not a very long walk, maybe a quarter of a mile, but in parts it's steep, and this year, it was really, really icy and slick. As we were picking our precarious way up the trail, there were other people sliding all the way down on their butts. They were having a good ol' time but it's people doing stuff like that that makes the trail even more slippery. Oh well. I managed to make it there and back only falling down once, and from my observations, that was significantly better than average. We had a picnic lunch by the swinging bridge and then we walked to the base of Lower Yosemite Falls. From there we walked to Mirror Lake (a.k.a. Mere Puddle) and back to Happy Isle where we picked up the shuttle bus back to our car. It was a beautiful walk which took us about three hours. It's a four-hour drive from my house to Yosemite, so that pretty much filled up our day. I had a great time, and in case you missed it, I posted a few pictures yesterday.

This morning I was a good girl and got out of bed at seven. Before the rest of my family was awake, I went out and jogged my 5k loop (which is actually longer than 5k). I haven't run it since my birthday a week and half ago. I've been getting frustrated with my jogging because I don't feel like I'm getting any better. I still finish completely exhausted yet jog very, very slowly. But in a week and a half, I cut 3:38 off my time. So I guess I am improving after all. And this morning I put my belt on a notch tighter than before. Yeehaw! Tomorrow is my second weigh in day for Weight Watchers. I don't feel or look like I've lost any weight since last week. In fact, I feel fatter. But there's the deal with the belt, so we'll see.

Oh, remember that guitar piece I was talking about a week or so ago? The one from the movie "Uncorked?" It's called "Ross' Concert" and it was composed by Jeff Danna. Joonboy was kind enough to post the mp3 of it here, in case you're interested. He probably won't keep it up there long.