I need some hocus pocus and some focus

Our house has been hexed and I need some magic to turn our luck around.

A week ago, we learned that our credit card number had been stolen and used to make several fraudulent Internet purchases. I was alerted to this problem when my credit card was denied trying to make a purchase at WalMart. (It was a first for me, I am sure that it was the millionth time for them. I was more mystified than embarrassed...)

The credit card thief went on a little shopping spree for us which was very thoughtful. He/she purchased Internet/cable/phone service for us (from the same provider we already have), set us up with some system cleansing vitamins (a subscription nonetheless), and proceeded to set up their own account at an online gaming service. I spent several hours convincing customer service reps that these were not my purchases, nor my husband's, nor anyone else in the house (although I could not speak for the cat and although Captain Destruction is very capable of this kind of deviousness, he does not have access to our credit cards for just this reason!)

If things could not get any better, our septic system overflowed and failed. Just a little gross if you ask me. Apparently, it is not a good idea to go 6+ years with 6+ people in the house without having it pumped.

Next, our washer suffered a debilitating, but fortunately not fatal injury. A new part needs to be ordered because the band aid fix will only last so long.

We are now at 3+ nails in the front passenger tire of the my vehicle. Two have been removed. One is still in there just waiting to cause catastrophic failure.

Today, I spent 50 minutes wait time on hold (after being told it would only be 10 minutes) to fix a problem with I-Pass and our alleged failure to pay three tolls in the state of Illinois, one from 2007. Apparently, they were not able to cross reference our license plate to our I-Pass account as the customer service representative that I gave our new WI licence plate number to transposed the numbers upon entering them.

Oh, I almost forgot, this morning Captain Destruction and the Cheese flipped my oldest son's birthday cake onto the kitchen floor today, top side down. This was after Captain Destruction had licked a large portion of the frosting off.

My training has not been spot on either.

Due to some scheduling conflicts and a scheduled 4+ hour power outage while our electricity was being "upgraded", I had to run at night this past Wednesday. I left about 7:30 p.m. for my 45 minute run. I run in my neighborhood which is rather secluded, not much drive through traffic. I wore a head lamp so I would be visible and as always, I ran on the white line facing traffic. I was almost done as it became nightfall. Upon my return home, I had a run in with two vehicles.

The first was a truck flashing his brights several times as he approached me. I was unsure what the purpose of this action was. Did he want me to dive into the drainage ditch? There is little to no shoulder in my neighborhood and we have no sidewalks. There was no traffic on the other side of the road, so crossing over into the other lane of traffic to safely pass me was no problem. His actions only served to blind me, making it more likely for me to "stumble" into the path of his vehicle.

Then to add the cherry to the inconsiderate sundae I was just served, the car that followed behind the truck, lined up on me and gunned it, shifting over to the other lane just in the nick of time. I returned home furious, exclaiming that jerks like those two drivers was the reason why I run at 5 in the morning. Those types of drivers are still hungover in bed at that hour!

In addition to vehicular chicken, my training has been compromised by my physical therapy. I had my fourth session on Tuesday, and it brought tears to my eyes. I know that it has been beneficial, but this week my shoulder has revolted. The story I have been telling myself is that the muscles are finally realizing that they have been slacking and now that I have been trying to get them to fulfill their responsibilities they are throwing temper tantrums like my children. Whatever the reason really is, on Wednesday I could not even do my physical therapy exercises let alone swim as my shoulder ached and felt as if it was swollen. I have not swam since Monday and I am actually going to try it on Saturday and see what happens.

The shoulder has not only impacted my swimming, but has made my running slightly uncomfortable and it was very difficult to get comfortable on my long trainer ride.

Despite not making all of my workouts, I have been eating like I am training 24/7. I have broken almost every nutrition goal I had set for the past couple months. I know that my workout time and calorie expenditure is increasing, but my goodness, I have no self control. I can eat a balanced dinner and be hungry 45 minutes later and eat two serving of chocolate ice cream with toppings. I can eat cereal with milk at any time and anything sweet (with the exception of candy -- have not broken that one yet!) is consumed in the matter of seconds.

I really need to focus on eating smaller portions more often and include some more "healthy fat" in my diet. When I look at what I eat, I tend to gravitate to low fat/fat free foods which perhaps explains some of my incurable hunger. Today is not a fat free day, however, as it is my oldest son's faux-birthday* and I ate the balance of the frosting that remained after I re-frosted the cake and we went out to Red Robin for dinner.

I hope by clearing my mind, I will also be clearing the air and the black cloud of ugliness that is residing in our house will be gone! I hope that it does not visit you next!

*Faux-birthday: my son's actual birthday is on Easter this year. We are going down to my in-laws for Easter and a birthday celebration, but not only his. We will be celebrating his 9th and the birthdays of two of his cousins, one who is turning 3 and one who is turning one. Guess who will be getting most of the attention? Fairly sure that three cakes are not going to be made and the nine year old will not be the center of attention. I felt bad that 1) his birthday fell on Easter 2)he had to share his actual birthday with two others and 3)he never really has fun at Grandma's because he is the only boy other than Captain Destruction and we all know that Captain Destruction is always busy with his superhero duties. In order to make my son's birthday special we decide that today would be his faux-birthday complete with presents and cake.