My Week - Could Have Been Better But It Could Have Been Worse

There is quite possibly nothing that gets your blood pumping and your body galvanised into action as waking up to find that you were supposed to have started your long run five minutes ago.

I'm speaking with the voice of experience here. Very recent, very bitter experience. I'd spent Thursday rallying a small posse to join me at 4:00am to get 4k done before meeting a few more people at 4:30. Yes, some of my friends are just as crazy as I am. Friday morning I set my alarm for 3:25am and it was still on when I woke up at 3:05 and told myself that I could doze for 20 more minutes. But at 4:05 when I woke again it was off.

What the??

No time to ponder the who, what, when, where and why of the situation though. If I was going to get to the 4:30 start I was going to have to move my butt. It's amazing how quickly one can move when one has incentive. And my incentive was to get 28 out of my 32k done with company. I made it with minutes to spare.

I still have no idea how my alarm got turned off except that I would have to have done it myself. I'm guessing I was in the middle of a dream and the alarm became part of the dream. Maybe a door bell went or a phone. Either way I dealt with it without gaining consciousness. Hmmm - I wonder if I could incorporate this new-found skill into my working day.

And really, that event was indicative of my week. Could have been better but could have been worse.

On the could have been better side there were a few missed runs. I was feeling tired and unwell but wasn't actually sick sick. No fevers, sore throat, vomiting or diarrhoea. Just not 100%. So I missed the previous Saturday's long run. And then I missed Tuesday's run. And Friday it was raining so I went back to bed instead of pulling on running shoes. Not a stellar running week. But in saying that I did notch up almost 50k in two runs and completed my strength session at Body track to rave reviews. About my tights again. Definitely could have been better but could have been much, much worse.

I could have done better at work. I spent all week trying to work out how to steal time away from it so I could do what I really wanted to do - bake! Did I need to bake? No. There was a large lemon cake in the fridge, scones in the freezer and a couple of brownies left in a cake container. But I had a desperate urge to bake brought on by a picture posted three times on Facebook.

Whoever came up with this beauty must have been having the mother of all chocolate cravings. I too enjoy the occasional piece of chocolate and saw the potential to sneak a piece or two from the many opened packets that this cake would require. It was a match made in heaven - except for the part about actually having to work for money to buy the ingredients and the many, many packets of chocolate for decoration. 

By Friday I could resist no longer and just ignored the pile of posing trunks that needed to be cut out. And the clown costume that still has to be drafted. Four blissful hours later I had this in my fridge.

And this one too.  

And I didn't eat any of the chocolates while I was making it. Major win for self-discipline there. But two days later half of the chocolates on the cake board have been picked off. Could have been better but it could have been worse.

Then we had a farewell lunch for #3 son and his girlfriend on Sunday before they head off to Europe for 12 weeks. Paris, England, Ireland, Wales, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. It's going to be epic!

I agonised over where to go for lunch. I wanted it to be an iconic Brisbane location. So I thought about Mt Coottha so they could overlook all of Brisbane while we ate. But discounted it because I really don't like the cafe up there. Then I thought of Southbank because it's where they used to walk through when Becky would walk down to the CityCat stop to meet Luke before school. And it was going to be Southbank until I was hit with a flash of inspiration. It had to be Park Rd in Milton so I could get a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower so they could practice for the real thing.

I know - I am a genius! The cafe we ended up at was okay. Not bad. Not brilliant. And Luke couldn't eat because he had food poisoning or a mild gastro virus. Could have been better but it could have been worse.

And finally I survived the final week of Iven's long service leave without killing anyone. That's two months total so far this year of having him in my way in the kitchen whenever I've wanted to do something important like bake a cake that we don't need. I actually think my excessive fatigue last week was because I have to walk around him all the time. But I guess that's increasing my incidental exercise so I can justify eating the chocolates off the board of the cake. Could have been better (Like he could have taken holidays when I could take holidays too. Not that I'm bitter about that. Okay, maybe a little bit bitter) but it could have been worse. Can't think how at the moment but I'm sure I will eventually.