Yesterday I climbed Mt Kosciusko…Australia’s highest mountain!

We actually tried twice and succeeded once. The first time was cut short by miserably cold and wet weather. The second time took Aiden and I four and a half hours to climb to the summit and get back to the top of the chair lift.

I thought Kosi itself was pretty unimpressive, but the views from the top were amazing and I had a great afternoon of mum and son time with my oldest boy.

Very pleased to have crossed another thing off my bucket list!

It would have been nice if my first post back after the trip was about the trip…but it’s not.

We’ve been back a month already. Can you believe it? I can’t. It didn’t take long to get back into the routine of work and life.

I thought I had taken a good amount of time to rest and recover during the break, dealt with some stressors and was feeling good about being in control of the way life/work was heading. I was feeling positive and excited for the future. I thought i was on the right track. My body apparently  has other ideas though. It thinks it’s stressed enough to start making me ill.

On Monday morning I thought I was having a stroke (ok, so I’m prone to a little drama queen action in my head LOL but still…can’t be too careful) …half of my face was tingly and sort of burning in places, my head was pounding and I was getting pins and needs in my arm/hand on the same side. So I went to work (smart huh?) … by mid morning I decided that I probably should see a doctor, and by lunchtime I was sitting in the doctor’s office being poked and prodded. As it turns out my brain is not exploding…I appear to be having a return visit from my old friend Bell’s Palsy (although the doctor did say to watch out for stroke symptoms and go straight to hospital if necessary…yikes). I say return, because I had the initial episode when I was 15, brought on by a virus invading my cranial nerve.

High-dose steroids is the order of the day treatment-wise to attempt to stop it early. There’s no way of knowing how severe the symptoms might get at this stage…I’m hoping not to go the whole Salvadore Dali melting face look…but you never know. For now its facial numbness, and some droopy bits (could write that off to old age I guess) but I’m not drooling just yet.

So…I’ve taken some time off work to give my body the best chance of resting and recovering. Now I just need to figure out how to turn off my brain and thus the attendant stress of letting people down when there’s lots of work to be done. The people-pleaser that dwells within needs to be taken down a peg or two me thinks. Health first. Everything else can wait. (there’s a mantra to chant in there somewhere) My life coach will probably be unsurprised.

I promise stories about our trip will come…soon…but first I need to rest and recover. If you’re the praying type I’d appreciate your prayers.

Well! Only a couple of hours and we’ll be jetting off for our 16 day adventure in France. I won’t be blogging here until after we return, but I’ll be posting sketches and photos to a dedicated Flickr album if you would like to follow along for the adventure. Click on the picture below to be taken to my France 2011 set.

A bit of background….I went to jump on my bike at the end of a very long and busy day, only to discover that I had a flat tyre (why didn’t I see that this morning?). Whipped the wheel out, removed a piece of glass, new tube…blah blah…exploded the jolly thing IN THE OFFICE with a CO2 canister. Had to run home (the husband is away on a ski trip) and didn’t have the right gear with me.

Here’s what I learned tonight:

1. CO2 canisters and road bike tubes don’t mix. This is the second time I’ve exploded a tube.

2. Bare footing at night is less than optimal.

3. Bare footing in socks is a pain in the butt when you get a hole in them and they start to collect small stones through the hole. (ended up putting my Colorado MaryJane flats on after 5kms)

4. Socks really are only good for 4 or 5 kms.

5. MaryJanes are neither a sexy choice in running gear, nor a comfortable one….I had sore knees within 5 minutes of putting them on after I got holes in my socks.

6. Running in a pair of biking knicks that were designed for long distance riding is like running in a full nappy.

7. Playing spotlight with spiders on the path is fun…their eyes shine blue!

8. Coming home to an empty house after such a crappy evening sucks.

I hope I don’t have to do that again in a hurry.

Have you ever had to suck it up and just get going?

I posted over on my art blog this morning about an exciting new project that I have in the works…why don’t you pop on over and take a look….