Tires and TV, Meet Helen, Too late to fix?

Yesterday my fake chicken finally arrived a week late but in one piece.  The “bird” is much smaller than I expected but upon double checking that is because of my lack of attention to detail.  I thought 18x12x24 was in inches, it was actually in centimeters.  It’s big enough to serve it’s purpose hopefully.  I felt the need to name the fake chicken.  After a very short period of time I landed on the name Helen.  I’m not sure why but that was the name.

I took Helen out with me to give Kathy her afternoon treats.  I sat the bird a few feet away.  Kathy looked at it but didn’t react one way or another.  Before I put Kathy to bed last night I put Helen up on the perch with her.  Helen was still on the perch this morning so at least I know Kathy didn’t attack her.  This morning I moved Helen out to the chicken run.  It will be very interesting to see if Kathy starts hanging out with her new inanimate friend.  Troy pointed out to me how his parakeet used to love the fake bird that was in it’s cage.  Maybe the same  thing will happen here, sort of like how children get attached to stuffed animals.

My replacement road bike tire showed up yesterday as well.  Randall is supposed to come over this weekend so I wanted to have my road bike in safe riding shape in case we ride.  Since I already changed the front tire several months ago it wasn’t a huge struggle to get the back tire on outside of a few little sticking points.

If you have read my blog for any period of time you know of some of my struggles mentally with dealing with some of the hurdles in life.  I have an inner critic that is constantly clashing with my desire to live a happy life.  This negative thought process can creep into so many parts of my life and in most situations the outcome is not good.

I have been working on sorting out this behavior and identifying why my thought processes chain together like they do.  The real key is to break that chain right at the onset before anything takes hold.  There are ways to do that but for anyone that says it is easy, especially for someone that has been around for over five decades, isn’t being realistic.  The first step in the process is being cognizant of the behavior.  The second step is trying to make changes to your thought patterns to reprogram your brain from following the well worn path into unhappy, negative thinking.  I need to apply the same mantra as I have used for physical activities where consistent effort results in slow and steady improvement.

Speaking of physical activity, doing the stress test yesterday which included running for several minutes on the treadmill was exactly what my sore left IT band did not need.  I was gimpy as hell once again last night and this morning.  I need to find that magic stretch that releases this tension that sends lightning bolts of pain down the side of my leg and across the top of the knee.  Today I have my heart ultrasound. Hopefully it doesn’t reveal that I am pregnant.