Realizations

Warning: This is a picture-less post.  Proceed at your own risk......

I have come to a few realizations recently.  Four to be exact:

1.)  I leave for Iceland tomorrow night!!  Holy Shlamola!!  This still doesn't feel real.  When will it feel real?  Do I have to land in Paris?  Do I simply have to be on the plane?  It's ridiculously bizarre.  I feel like I've only been off work for a week and I still feel like I'm just going to be back at the club any day now. 

Hard to believe that my grand "European Adventure" is about to begin . . . though I definitely had another melt down today, so part of my brain recognizes the reality at hand.  This one was not due to technology (although I was definitely frustrated after 5 hours on the computer today), but I feel like all of the prep work I did to avoid those "oh shit, I need to take care of that" moments have not been as successful as I had hoped.  In part due to my own ignorance, in part due to unexpected crap...... Getting doctor bills from January that insurance won't pay (NOW you tell me) and letters about changes to accounts taking place that are our of my control but that need to be taken care of now.  Why now?!  Why right before I'm about to leave?!  Chalk it up to Murphy's Law.

2.)  Lining up work with farmers for WWOOF-ing is going to be more challenging than I was expecting.  I got incredibly excited last Friday when I first started looking at farms in Ireland, and emailed a few of the ones that entice me the most, but have yet to hear back.  After reading a lot of forums, it appears this is one of the biggest challenges / gripes for people: waiting to hear back from farmers (who are sometimes waiting to hear back from other WWOOF-ers.  Vicious cycle).  In any case, I still have very high hopes, and almost every farm I've read about sounds appealing.  As I read the descriptions, I just want to shout out: "Yes Please!" with my hand waving wildly in the air.  (There is even one small family farm that just started an at-home bakery . . . heck yes!!!) We'll see what happens!!

3.)  8 hours of sleep is still simply not possible if I want to do everything I want to do.  That sounds weird, but basically 16 hours is not enough time.  As ridiculous as that sounds.  It's true. And I realize that even though none of those 16 hours are spent working, when I will be in a new place with tons of explorations at hand, spending 8 hours sleeping will not fly (I've already been struggling to get 8 and I'm not even in Europe yet!!).  SO I'm modifying to 6 hours of sleep 5 days/week, as I know that I still feel good on 6 hours of sleep with 2 nights/week of 8 hours.  There.  That is my compromise!

4.)  My ankle is STILL really bugging me.  GRRRRR.  I'm so frustrated about it.  4 weeks with NO running didn't fix it, so I've been gradually progressing back up from 5 x 2 minute bouts of running to 4 x 7 minute bouts.  It's incredibly disappointing to have to limit my running so much, but I realize that right now I need to focus on getting my stupid ankle back to 100% rather than a time goal for a 5K.  So my new immediate running goal is to have all my runs be pain free, and all the walking, standing, balancing, etc . . . of the rest of the day be painless as well.  PAIN FREE here I come!   As part of this goal I've become very diligent about icing.  I will maintain 3 x 15 minutes/day of icing.  There. I hold myself accountable.