I'm still recovering from parties over the weekend. It wasn't anything special, just some people and more food than I should have eaten. Today I also didn't sleep well, but I managed to get myself and the kids to both private lessons in the morning and the class in the evening. My coach said today that he thinks my fencing has improved, but I am having hard time believing it. I am so trained by my kids teachers and coaches everywhere that compliments are handed so easily and often as "an encouragement" to those who are hopeless, I just can't bring myself to trust them and as the result, they make me feel worse. Just tell me what I need to work on to stop losing almost every bout. Sigh. Wintermom ~ sorry that you are having stomach problems. I just wanted to throw into the general mix that sometimes what feels like too much acid can be too little acid. Have you had your levels measured? We had both cases in the family. I used to have regular stomach pains, and two of the worst ones were caused by switching to a vegan diet (my attempt to follow Orthodox lent, lasted a couple days short of 40 days due to terrible pain) and my MIL taking over cooking for a week, which included much more vegetables. I eventually came to realize that my body doesn't take well low- or high-anything diets.

I haven't posted all week, so here is a recap. After skipping Monday, I dragged myself to the club on Tuesday, mostly because of the kids, and it actually made me feel much better. So I fenced the rest of the week. And yesterday was really hot outside, so we bit the bullet and heated our new pool, and I got to swim in it for the first time. Finally, a year of torture of dealing with contractors paid off, and I got in the sixth day of some workout. I think today will be my lazy day, although I did go out to trim some roses this morning.

In my experience, the stories they tell are not lies, they are more like telling of hallucinations. My grandmother's stories were usually not related to any of us, but they were so obviously not true, and yet she was telling them as if she lived them. Sometimes even when she was talking about her current surroundings, it was obvious that her perception of reality was really off. It was really unsettling and at times hair-raising. As to how long it takes to diagnose, it is hard to say. It develops at different speed for different people. My grandmother had it for a very long time, I would say close to 20 years from the first symptoms, developing slowly. My husband's grandma had it for only a couple years, from totally normal to completely losing her personality.

Oh, it IS something completely different. It is about 10' in diameter pink ball that pretends to be a flowering plant that looks pretty from afar, but waits for you to come close to sink its 1" thorns into your skin, meanwhile playing a house to some critters that I suspect are rats. It also encroaches on the walkway along the street, so I had to trim it. Unfortunately, a bin-full of cutting barely made a dent on this monster. Sorry about that and hope that it will resolve soon. Mine also recently became greatly variable and picked up a habit of coming together with bad PMS. I blame it on my age, even though I am still relatively young for this $%& to start. I think I am feeling better today, but my son started complaining about the same thing. We'll see how it develops by evening.

My week started rather badly, as I caught a virus and spend the last two days being miserable and not active. I did trim a trash bin worth of bougainvillea (and I spelled it on the first try!), but that is it. I hope I am feeling well enough tomorrow to go fence.

Thanks for the encouraging words, wintermom! I already do a lot of what you mentioned, it just takes forever for me to turn theory into practice :) Plus, sometimes after the class in the shower I think I should try xyz next time, and I remember about it the next time in the shower :) It does require full mental engagement, as everything happens very quickly, and the right thing to do often runs against all instincts, so it takes reprogramming of that, too. It's a fun challenge though. And speaking of sparring, I started my journey into working out with a martial arts class. It was a gentle mix of everything, without full contact sparring, and I really liked it, but I also wanted something more competitive, but still without that full contact. So when my DD said she wanted to try fencing,I discovered the ideal sport for me, with just right amount of contact, pretty safe, and with competitions up to 70+ year-olds :) I do have my share of bruises, but that I can deal with.

Unfortunately for me, it is really hard to find any advantage: I am less experienced, much older, less flexible, have slower reactions, and I am short. I can overcome most of that by training, but I need to train harder and longer. And the only advantage I can see at the moment is that I have more passion for the sport. For some reason even our best fencers run to their phones between matches, and then stay on them until someone asks them to fence, often also at my prodding. As for height being an advantage, it is the immediate reach, so it mostly comes from the arm length. Longer legs/longer lunges also play a role, but they are not as obvious. Unlike legs, the weapon arm is always in your face, and at the distance where they can reach my entire torso, I can only reach their hand or foot, which is doable, but requires much better technique and precision. So pretty much when the blades are crossed, I feel like my opponent is way out of reach, which is unsettling. Anyway, I will learn to deal with it, eventually. We have a lady in our club who is about 5'1'' and was on the USA national veteran team some time ago, so I do have hope :) She is also about my mom's age, and still can beat a lot of youngsters, so she is quite an inspiration.

Soror ~ Sorry you are not feeling well. Whatever it is, I hope it goes away fast, and also that you got your rest today! I had a very nice class today. Usually I am very intimidated by taller opponents, and given that I am 5'4", it means most of them. Today I talked about it with one of the ladies, and after getting some tips went to fence a girl who is about 5'11". I lost, but since I had a plan, it wasn't too bad, and made me feel better about height difference in general. So, some progress :)

I have been feeling really down this week, but I did manage to get myself to all scheduled classes. That was a good thing. The bad thing was the amount of chocolate I consumed to muster the energy to go there. I feel better today, so I hope I am over this. And I only up 1 pound, which isn't too bad.

I am feeling very tempted to just curl up in some corner and skip the class tonight, but will try to do my best to drag myself there. Luckily, today's class is in the studio close, so less reasons not to go. I hope everyone is doing great!

I fenced epee in a regional competition. It was especially crazy since it was pretty high rated competition, and I am just a beginner, but it was fun :)

I survived my competition, and for a difference, I wasn't the very last :) I took another bath last night, as there was no time for exercise, and today I could barely feel the pain. After warm up it was completely gone. So thanks to everyone for advice, it was the fastest ever I got over muscle soreness. I managed to force 2 yogurts into my body, and after initial protests, it settled and I didn't have problem with low blood sugar. All that made the competition very pleasant. Of course, it was also a day with most ever equipment malfunction. In one of the bouts my opponent and I had a total of 4 weapon fails, with average number of it happening in a competition about zero. So, fun. And now I have to fix 3 epees for my DD's competition on Sunday. That will be my workout for the rest of the week.

So, I did everything as I said I would, and still I am barely moving today. On the positive side, it is not worse than yesterday, so it is already good. No classes today, but I'll try to do some warm ups and stretches at home. Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 am, as the competition starts at 8. My body doesn't normally wake up until well after that, and I am having hard time eating anything before noon, yet as soon as I start exercising, I can feel my sugar levels plummet, so I need to eat something. And drink a lot, too. I have this weird thing when I do exercise in the morning when my body stops sweating and starts heating, with skin feeling like it's on fire. It's like that advice from college - never register for 8am class :)

I started fencing with my kids at 39. It may be a little different as fencing is a rare sport where there are official championships for people 70+, but you still get to compete with those 13 and up. It's hard and intimidating, but fun. I say, go for it! You can do it.

Ok, I'll go to the class tonight, then hot bath and arnica gel :) and hope it works. Thanks! Usually I just suffer through it, but I want to be able to score at least some touches on Friday, and it's hard when you can't bend your knees or lunge.

No, I thought it was for bruises. But I have some at home, I'll try it today. Thanks!

Went to the class last night, and for whatever reason decided that I can do those squat jumps with the kids. I did. It was fun even, but pretty much as soon as I finished, I knew I'll have to pay for it. My muscles are sore today, tomorrow they will be worse. Early morning on Friday I have another competition. Now, the question is what was I thinking when I decided to do it? I could have figured out it would happen. Any ideas how I may walk on Friday, let alone fence?

In the study they used 3 or 3.5 mg, I think. I read about melatonin in general, and after that decided to start with the lowest dose I could find - 0.5 mg. It worked, so I stayed with it. Since I only had problems for the first two days of the cycle, it took me a few weeks to notice the effect. I do have a shadow of headache this month, some mental "cloudiness" and a touch of nausea, and actually now that I think of it, the last three weeks I ate pretty low carb...meat, green veggies, dairy and coffee, mostly, and usually I have my fair share of sweets. But after all the workouts, I don't want any, I am craving meat instead. Maybe I should stop thinking how fascinating human body chemistry is and go eat a cookie.

Greta, are your migraines linked to peri? I am asking because when my first symptoms started, I did some google digging and found some rather small and obscure research paper about effect of melatonin and it's link to the production of female hormones that gets disrupted during perimenopause. I figured that melatonin was a cheap and relatively safe thing to try, and it actually helped me a lot. Unless I forget and skip too many days in a row, my cycle is back to 4 weeks and no associated migraines. If you think of it, melatonin (and probably other hormones, like estrogen and progesterone) production is directly linked to carbs. Obviously, I can't promise anything, and it may not work for you, but as I said, it is cheap and pretty safe for most people, so maybe taking it as a supplement will let you get back to low carb diet?

Congratulations, soror! It's quite an achievement, especially on top of homeschooling and renovations. We did a huge landscaping/exterior renovation project this year, which is just coming to the end right now, and all together it was a nightmare. I don't know how we survived. Adding 200 hours of training to it sounds impossible. But you did it! My competition today went pretty much as expected - with everyone with a pulse kicking my behind. What helped was that DD took second place, losing by just one touch in the final bout. I am very proud of her. I think that the fact that I took her with me every day for the last three weeks really helped her get in shape for this competition. Anyway, she qualified for Division II and III National championship, and now we are considering going there in July. Before she was really against this idea, saying that she wouldn't go even if she qualified. So, all in all, the day was a win. Oh, and one of my swords did malfunction, but we got them all fixed. Now, the competition on Friday is several times more competitive, so I'll probably be the last again, but the older ladies were very nice, so I hope it will be as much fun as it was today.

I did meet my week goals: I fenced my 5 days. Today was a rest day, and I checked my equipment for tomorrow. Naturally, I found one broken cord, which I can fix and I have a spare. Unfortunately, I also found an unglued wire on one of my epees. Ok, on my DD's epee. The bummer is that fixing it is easy, but I don't have that glue. If I noticed it yesterday, it wouldn't be a problem, but tonight it is. It's just weird that it never happened before in almost three years that the kids were fencing and competing. The first time was on my son's competition in March, and now again. Well, we still have three working ones between the two of us, so let's hope that the last one won't be needed.

I feel tired last few days. I still fenced every day, but I think I need a nap if I want to survive today. Also, I fenced a 14 yo boy a couple of times, and now I look like a victim of abuse: my arms, right shoulder, and right thigh are covered in bruises. I know that bruises come with this sport, but it is just ridiculous. I now remember why I don't usually fence boys.

I spent half a day yesterday trying to fix my electric equipment. I think I fixed my epee, but not the cord. Ordered a new cord and a testing kit. I guess if I don't do well on the competition, I can blame it on equipment ;) I had DD video one of my bouts last night, and it's sad. I can't believe how slow I am. It surely doesn't seem like it when I actually fence.

Fencing was very disappointing today. I totally lost to a couple of people I usually was on level with. And I don't even know what went wrong. Plus my equipment is acting up, and again, I have no idea what to blame. I need to fix everything by Sunday, and I don't have testing equipment.

My goal for the week is get as ready as possible for the competition next Sunday, which for me means 5 days of fencing, then break on Saturday. Today I planted a hundred or so gladiolus bulbs, and then took my son to a competition. For me in involved 4 hours of standing and walking. I am totally exhausted now. On the positive side, I met another mom who will be fencing with me on Sunday. Given how few people fence, I am very excited.