You Might be Low if...

· You wake up on the floor and don’t remember how you got there. People may be hovering over you with concern.

· You get really angry for no reason.

· You start crying for no reason.

· You get angry and start crying…for no reason.

· You wake up (in your bed) with something like an anxiety attack, thinking:

• “What if I don’t get my circus application in on time?”
• “What if I am late to the Bike and Build orientation?”
• “Oh no, I totally forgot to prep the fruit salad, breakfast is going to be a disaster!”
• “I’m going nowhere in life and will wind up living under a bridge and dying in a gutter by the time I’m 40.”

· You wake up, in bed, tossing off all the blankets and sheets because you’re overheating but the room is only about 40 degrees F because it’s the middle of winter, and your sweat has soaked through the sheets so you’re going to have to replace them after you get your glass of juice. And maybe toast with jam, too.

· Nothing seems to be going right. I mean nothing. Then you cry.

• “Why can’t I do these kick-over to seats on the German Wheel?”
• “There’s no way I can do these math problems. The 3’s multiplication table is impossible.”
• “Why do I keep dropping everything?”

· Someone does something nice for you, and you get angry.

· Someone asks if you’d like some help doing a somewhat difficult yet not impossible task, and you get angry.

· You’re talking gibberish. Or rather, the story you’re telling makes no sense at all to anyone but you.

· You lose all sense of coordination. That is, if you had any to begin with.

· Mood swings? Haha, mood rollercoaster!

· You think to yourself, “I should go grab my blood test machine and do a blood test because I’m feeling a little off.” Then you realize that you’re already holding your meter, and that you’ve actually been holding it for a while, but you don’t know how long. And you have no recollection, whatsoever, of getting up, walking over to the table, grabbing said machine off the table, and returning to the chair. Then when you finally get around to doing a blood test, the machine reads “34 mg/dL.” Score.

*Some of those things may or may not have occurred in the course of my diabetic life.

It's Shnow Time!

Well, it’s snowing. Finally. I’m not one of those huge fans of snow, I don’t hate it but I don’t absolutely love it. I accept it as a natural and necessary occurrence of wintertime. And, yes, it can be fun. It’s a bit of a nuisance when you want to go ice skating on an outdoor surface, such as a pond-out-back, and have to shovel a lot of snow, usually heavy snow, before lacing up the skates. But I was starting to feel a bit unnerved due to the lack of snow. You know that whole “global warming” and “climate change” deal? Yeah, these strange weather patterns make me feel glad to live on a hill…hopefully it’s a tall enough hill, if you know what I mean.

So, this week is the first week of winter session classes at NECCA. I have one class on Monday, two on Tuesday, and one today (Thursday). Hopefully the weather cooperates and stops weathering this afternoon so that the class will happen tonight. Oh, you’d like to know what those classes are, eh? They are: Acrobatics 201 (aka Tumbling), Fabrics 101, German Wheel (love love love) 301or whatever level I’m at, and Bungee 101, respectively. I am also working on putting together my application for the Intensive Program at NECCA. Filming for the short 5 minute audition/application video has already begun, but I’m probably worrying too much and taking it too seriously. I’ve done somewhere in the vicinity of a billion cartwheels, (ok that might be an exaggeration - probably more like 50), because I want them to be very good and if I wobble a bit on the landing, I’ll re-do it. And re-do it. And re-do it. I just need to relax and have fun.

In other news, it turns out my endocrinologist’s officer (diabetes specialist) is not covered under my new health insurance plan. Awesome. That means I either pay for the visit out of pocket, travel more to find an office that is under that plan, or switch insurance plans…again. Whatever, I can take care of my diabetes just fine as long as I know I can’t necessarily count on having competent doctors (“Doctors, Insurance Companies, and Test Strips, Oh My!”) or being able to see my endocrinologist on a regular basis. It just means I need to step up my game a little. No big deal. The big problem, however, is that I can’t write out my own prescriptions or prior approvals for more test strips. Oh well. It’ll all work out in the end, somehow.

If you’re wondering about pull-ups, I’ll have a post with another update soon…I hope. And hopefully with some cool info and diagrams about muscles and stuff. Yay for sentence fragments! That’s the plan, Stan. I don’t know who Stan is.

May the Road We’ve Yet to Take Leave a Smile Across Our Face

Yesterday was last week, last month, and last year. For less than 24 hours, that’s a long time ago. It’s nice to use this time of year to reflect on the past and plan or look forward to the future, but I am choosing not to make any “New Year’s Resolutions” this year because I already have some goals on which I have been working. I try not to end my sentences with prepositions; thank you high school grammar. I also usually end up disappointing myself when it comes to resolutions, and why do that to myself? This seems to happen especially if I make diabetes-related resolutions. Every day is a different balancing act; metaphorically speaking, one day I might be juggling while tight-wire walking and another I could be hula-hooping and unicycling. Each day brings something different to the diabetes circus, so it’s best to simply try every day, and hopefully on a good day I’ll learn from my mistakes and do better the next time, and maybe even replicate some successes.

With that, I hope you all have a happy and health New Year.

By the way, the title for today’s post is taken from a line in the song, “Cradle of Humankind” by Flogging Molly. I think of it as a good song for the New Year. Give a listen if you wish.

Finally, I promised I would divulge my warm-ups for pull ups. Incidentally, I use the same warm-up for pushups as pull ups because I usually do my pull ups right after my pushups. I’m following a “7 Weeks to 100 Pushups” routine (from a book by Steve Speirs), which is where I got the warm up routine. So, I hope I don’t get sued. Generally, it’s good to move your neck, shoulders, back, and waist to warm them up. Do each move 8-10 times before moving onto the next.

• · Move your neck side-to-side, then up and down, then look side-to-side, finally roll your head all around clockwise then counterclockwise.

• · Shrug your shoulders up then roll them back and down. Repeat but roll them forward.
• · With your elbows close to your side bend at 90 degrees with your hands in front and twist your torso side to side.
• · Let your hands hang down by your side then reach one side to the floor (or to your knee) keeping your hand close to your leg, then the other side (back and forth).
• · Run in place for a minute or two.
• · Big arm circles forward and backward. As if you're swimming through air, keeping your arms straight. Can be done one side at a time or simultaneously.
• · Rotator cuff warm up 1 (my addition): with your elbows tight to your side and bent at 90 degrees and hands in front (I make mine into fists), pull your hands away from each other as if you’re opening cupboard doors. Bring your fists back together.
• · Big hugs. Holding your arms out to your sides, parallel with the floor, swing your hands in front of and across you so that you end up giving yourself a hug, or a double pat on the back (one arm will be over the other). I like to alternate over-under arms.
• · Rotator cuff 2 (my other addition): with 90 degree bent elbows, again, hold your arms out so you look like a cactus or a football goal post (your upper arm is parallel with the floor, your forearm is perpendicular), then rotate from the shoulder and try to point your hand down toward the floor. Arms may move simultaneously or one-at-a-time.
• · Reach to the sky and rotate your torso “leading with your stomach,” whatever that means.
• · Run for another minute or 2.
• · Then I usually do a few more shrugs.

· Then it’s onto pushups or pull ups. Or both.

Goodbye Hello

It’s New Year’s Eve and I figured I’d squeeze in one more post to finish off 2011. I probably will be asleep, snug as a bug in bed, as people ring in the New Year all across the Atlantic Time Zone tonight. I’m working tomorrow, which means I’ll be waking up at 5:45am or so, and I’m trying to get over a head cold. Even though I’ll be asleep as others are singing “Auld Lang Syne” and giving midnight kisses, I am actually quite looking forward to the New Year. I’m anxious and excited because applications for the 2012-13 Professional Development programs at NECCA become available in January 2012. That’s TOMORROW! Not to mention that winter session classes start up on January 9. Bur now I also have to put some serious time and effort into assembling an audition video. Thankfully, long-time friend Tim Bradley agreed to edit the footage, once I’m done filming it. First things first, though, I have to start filming! And I haven’t forgotten that I still owe Tim and Andie a wedding present.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about why I want to attend NECCA’s 10 month Intensive Training Program, what I want to do with that, and what I want to do when I grow up. I think I’m starting to put something together that feels like I’m going in the right direction, but I can’t quite name it just yet. But this feels right; that’s why I want to get in, be accepted, so badly. It’s much different from when I was applying to college. Back then, college was the accepted and expected next step. It’s not that I didn’t have a choice, because I did, but it was the thing that kids-who-do-well-in-high-school did. What else was I going to do? Don’t get me wrong, I did well and enjoyed myself; I even joined the crew team. But I can’t say I was passionate about it. This circus work, on the other hand, has me hook, line, and sinker, and I see many different ways to make a life out of it. So, I’m anxious, excited, thrilled, restless, eager, a little apprehensive, and plain old looking forward to the New Year. I hope you all have great big plans for the future, too! Happy New Year!

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give me a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne

P.S. I did not forget. I said I would put some warm ups for pull ups on my next post, and this is my next post but I did not put them up here. Sorry. The next one, I promise.