Last week, I was home for spring break. Everyone who lives at home was there (Mom, Dad, Davey, Anna and Joe) except Jesse who was MIA in Europe. In addition to them, Naomi came to stay for the Easter weekend which she turned into the Easter week plus a few days. Being home reminded me that there are few places I know where I am able to really relax and recharge. Home is one of those places. The cliche, "home is where the heart is" probably defines home for me in this case seeing as I am so deeply connected to my family that where ever they are, I always feel at home.
This year has been a good, but difficult one. So needless to say, it was great to get away for a week. I arrived late Friday night and was picked up by Dad, Anna and Joe. Usually, the Blackwoods are always late picking anyone up from the airport. Usually the person being picked up is standing on the curb waiting for us, so I was surprised and delighted to see Anna and Joe standing there waiting for me. We headed back to the house, but, as I learned in the car, we were only stopping there to pick up Davey because we were ultimately heading for the Outer Banks. It turned out, Davey was willing to make the 1 1/2 hour drive to the beach with us, but he was not willing to make the 2 hour round trip to the airport in addition to this. I really couldn't blame him. So after making a quick stop at home where I was able to play with Lucy and Louie we headed to the beach at 11:30pm. Such is the way things happen in the Blackwood family.
I did not see mom until the next morning which was understandable seeing as we arrived at around 1 am. I had not seen her since Christmas but it seemed that nothing has really changed since then which means she is doing well. Aside from the fact that apparently she had hurt her leg doing some weird squatting exercise at 'boot camp.' She told me that the exercises she was doing were really nothing so she found it strange that she hurt herself. I was thinking the opposite. What I thought was, "how does a person not hurt him/herself while twisting and squatting at the same time during a workout referred to as boot camp while on top of it all battling a neuroendocrine cancer." Just thinking about it made me hurt, but then the real pain came later when I tried to keep up with Anna, Joe and Dad when they exercised. Needless to say, by Monday, after running, swimming, playing basketball and trying to do a kettle bell work out (see below about kettle bells), I was complaining about being sore.
The rest of my week was much the same as the weekend and by the end, I knew I has a good break because I was wishing I had just arrived. Throughout the week I continued to exercise regardless of the soreness. I did so seeing as both Anna and Joe pointed out that their money (at that time and still) is on Jesse seeing as he seemed much fitter than me. So as week two of training draws to a close I want to tell Anna and Joe that they should save their money seeing as I've now joined a master's swim team.
One other thing that I did do was research a bit about carcinoid. It seems, for the first time in my life, I can say that the science I have learned at school was actually useful. For some reason, I had never really looked into carcinoid until this week. What did I learn? Well, I think I save that for the next blog. What I will say is I really do not believe carcinoid is as rare as people claim it to be nor is it much different from most other cancers.
The Kettle Bell
You see my dad, you could say, has somewhat of an obsessive personality when it comes to certain things. It turns out kettle bells are one of these. What is a kettle bell? Well think of a cannon ball and then put a single continuous handle on it and you have a kettle bell. A few weeks early my dad left me a rather excited message telling me he had purchased a pair for me and Stephen so I had a bit of a kettle bell experience before I got home. However I had only experienced the 35lbs kettle bell. Dad has the complete set starting with Tiny or Weenie (I'm not too sure which is which, but they are named) who weighs roughly 8 lbs and all the way to the 75 pounder whose name I forget.
