Holiday Party 2013 and Saturday Recovery

Last night was our work holiday party, and I’ve spent today recovering. It was a lot of fun. I let loose and decompressed after a stressful week, so I needed today to rest and recuperate.

When the work day ended, I took Jon to the game store. I’ve dragged him with me to parties in the past, but I let him out of it this year. I knew I’d want to dance and socialize, and I didn’t want him to be bored and awkward, so I flew solo for the evening. My first stop was to get ready at my friend and co-worker’s house. My outfit wasn’t overly dressy, but it was different from what I’d worn during the day, and I actually put on some light makeup.

We had a couple glasses of wine before heading to the Hilton Garden Inn for pre-party cocktails. We mingled and visited with people while we waited for them to open the doors to the party room. Everyone was given two free drink tickets, so I had another glass of wine. When they finally opened the doors, we grabbed a table with all the report coordinators a friend from the business office. They started the lines for dinner shortly after that, and our table was in the second group called.

Delicious!

Speeches and a company update from our president followed dinner, and those were followed by more drinking and some dancing. I don’t drink often, but I definitely enjoyed some wine and beer last night. It was made easy by the bottles of wine they put on our tables. I’m also not a smoker, but I used to be, and when I drink I still have a tendency to join my fellow smokers for a cigarette. Luckily, I don’t seem to develop an addiction, and it will likely be several months before I smoke again, but when taken in the context for a party, I love me a cigarette. I didn’t think it was that cold outside, and the view from the hotel was very festive.

Going to walk through these lights next weekend.

True to my plan, I spent much of the night dancing, taking rest and water breaks as needed, but definitely holding my own on the “shake a tailfeather” front. It was so much fun! I love dancing, I just never get a chance to do it. This year, the music was good, and though there wasn’t a huge group of people on the dance floor, the group that was there was a good one.

Jon got a ride to the party as it was closing up. The festivities ended close to midnight, and after making sure my friends got home okay, we made the drive to Wamego. The weather had forecasted some nasty weather, but it never hit us, so our drive home was easy going. I fell asleep shortly after we got home and slept in this morning.

When I finally did get up, I showered and had some Gatorade and a Luna  bar for breakfast. As I’d expected, I was sore, so I spent most of the day chilling in my chair and working on knitting projects and solving mystery cache puzzles. However, the sunny skies outside eventually got the best of me, and Jon and I went out for an early evening walk before the sun went down. Because I was still hurting, I considered this a little bit of active recovery to get my muscles and joints moving. We walked several blocks, including a trek downtown where we stopped and had an early dinner at Barleycorns.

Grilled turkey panini and baja chicken soup

On the way back home, we stopped to get drinks and snacks for the evening, then came home to rest some more. It was a pretty leisurely stroll, and I think the only reason I was hurting when I got home was because I’d been hurting anyway. That dancing, man…my hips and lower back are probably going to need another day to right themselves again.

I talked to my mom tonight and got some information for a little writing project I’m going to do for her. I’ve been playing some cheesy Christmas movies, but I’ve been hanging out on the internet for the most part. I’m going to lay down early tonight and get some reading time in before calling it a day. I hope the weather is good tomorrow. I want to find some caches and hit the gym before gaming, and the plan is to go grocery shopping tomorrow night as well.

Now, it’s time to pop some more ibuprofen. Cheers!

A.

Recovery and Restlessness

As expected, last night was a late one. After work, Jon and I went over to Terry and Erica’s for gaming. Once everyone was there, we walked over to McAllister’s Deli for dinner, then over to Hy-Vee for some snacks. The walk made for some good exercise, but it probably wasn’t great for my hip (more on that later).  We opted for some new types of snacks from the Hy-Vee Health Market.

 

I’ve been wanting to try the Zevia soda for awhile now. It’s made with Stevia sweetener, and I wanted to see how I liked that. It was okay. I doubt if I’ll buy anymore of it though. It’s got a funny aftertaste, and I think if I’m going to have soda once in awhile, I’ll just stick to the regular stuff. The pomegranate licorice was delicious though. I’m definitely picking that up again.

We were all a little fried from the week, so instead of playing DnD, we ended up breaking out Cards Against Humanity. That game is so fun if you have a twisted sense of humor and aren’t easily offended. It’s also addicting, and though we were tired, we just kept playing until really late. It was fun. There was a ton of laughing, sometimes so hard it was painful.

When we got home though, I realized that the walk hadn’t done my hip much good, and that even though the alignment had relieved the pain, it had gone back to hurting badly again. I managed to get some sleep, but when I woke up this morning, I decided the best thing I could for my hip was to not use it this weekend. So I slept in and have stayed either planted in the chair or stretched out on the bed all day long. I’ve been applying heat to it on and off and taking ibuprofen to help with the swelling. It’s definitely feeling looser and less painful since I haven’t strained it today, but I think it still needs a few days of  rest. We’ll be laying low tomorrow and then hopefully this coming week I’ll be able to do some no impact work at the gym for exercise without hurting it too much.

I’m so restless, it’s not funny. I’ve been watching Netflix and reading blogs to pass the time. I’ve also been knitting and working on my stories of Nanowrimo, but the day outside was so nice, and I’m sad I didn’t get to out and enjoy it. However, my motivation to take actual and genuine rest is that I don’t want to be in pain for our trip to St. Louis in just over a week. We have a lot of things planned, all of which involve walking, and I want to enjoy the trip and not be nursing a bum hip the whole time.

I’ll call it a night there since nothing else exciting happened today, and I want to do another heat treatment before falling asleep.

A.