I've started a walking program of sorts. "Training" for a 10K.
Walk, not run. Just wanted to make sure there's not confusion here. I am not a runner. Will never be a runner. Have no desire to run. I could walk forever... speed walk, walk with weights, walk miles and miles fast and strong... but run? Nothankyou. That's a line I'm not crossing!
The annoying crazy thing is, I keep running (haha- not really RUNNING of course!) into friends or have been in touch with people I haven't seen in months, so many lately, who have suddenly become avid runners. They've somehow discovered this new found love of torturing themselves running and they can't stop talking about how much they enjoy it. That they used to think they hated running, but now they can't live without it.
Uh-uh. Not me. Never.
But the thing is? The thing that gets me? They all look amazing. They've all lost a very noticeable amount of weight... and it's not like they were overweight to begin with... just an extra few pounds here and there that they seemed to hold on to forever. Just like me.
And then they started running. (or like my crazy awesome friend Heather who decided to tackle a triathalon! Always liked running but decided to kick it up a notch... and lived to tell about it! And she's so skinny now!!) And those extra pounds melted away.
Which *almost* makes me want to like running.
But not really enough to make me actually want to like running.
:)
I'll stick to walking. And hey, my dad lost a hundred pounds by walking every day. So you don't have to run. Something's better than nothing, right?
So, just to give myself a goal and a schedule, more to make myself accountable than anything, I'm following this routine of sorts. Walking 6.2 miles (that's what 10K is right?!) is no big deal... I could walk that no problem today. But the schedule I have gives me shorter walks, longer walks, bursts of speed walking and such, assignments for hill walking, steps, etc. Mixes it up, makes it interesting and I feel like I'm working toward a goal. Mostly, it just makes me get out there every day. In the end as my goal, really as my reward, for sticking with the training agenda, I was wanting to participate in an organized 10K walk. Problem is, I can't really find any walks around here this fall. I spent a whole evening trying to look some up and the only one I would be interested in is actually taking place while we're out of town in November. Bummer. Otherwise there is, I think, some sort of get healthy, get moving, fitness awareness type walk/run in my time frame, but I was really hoping to do a charity walk. I might have to wait until next spring.
Any locals want to be my walking buddy? Or know of any charity run/walks (emphasis on the walk) around here this fall?
I have GOT to get my act together and remember how to blog! It seems I've given up blogging on a regular basis. Not that I want to, it's just- when will life slow down?
Seriously... when will I get back to posting more than once -maybe twice- a week? I miss it. I really, really miss it.
I think what it boils down to right now is that I always feel a bit guilty about wanting to blog about the normal, everyday, superfluous things when I'm so backlogged on the big fun newsy posts I owe. It always seems that when I have a dozen posts overdue, half-written and sitting on the back burner, missing from the archive of reality... that's when I constantly am coming up with new random posts in my head I want to write up; funny things the kids say, comical (or irritating) situations I run across (lots of those lately), big topic items (H1N1 vaccine- are you or aren't you?) and the ordinary every day stuff. I'm full of it lately. And then somehow I convince myself I need to pause those stories or probings and get caught up on blogging the big stuff first.
Which is dumb because this blog is about documenting our life.
So here's our life lately:
Sawyer told me I was a genius. I can't for the life of me remember what it was we were talking about now, but I do remember he told me, "Mom! You're a genius!" Hehe. Boy do I have him fooled!
Savannah is loving being a first grader. It scares me how old she seems lately. But. With all of our house guests and the new full days of school the past month and a half, Savannah's been in meltdown mode the last couple of weeks by the time each Thursday and Friday evening rolls around. Is it horrible to say that I secretly partly love those rough days?... I like that she still needs to cry, she still needs to be comforted and consoled, and yes, still needs to throw some irrational fits like a toddler. It reminds me that she's not as grown up as she so often seems. My baby still needs me.
Sawyer's officially a bike-rider these days... he had it down pat by the end of the summer. No training wheels for this kid! (now, Savannah's a different story...)
I have been shopping up a storm. A few things here and there for the kids starting school (mostly shoes), but really surprising and new around here, I've been doing a lot of shopping for me. I'm trying to slowly replace my wardrobe... hopefully smaller, but also just different. I'm so sick of my style -or lack of style really- and I'm trying to subtly change it up a bit. I haven't really truly shopped for myself, like gone out specifically looking for me, in so long it's taking some getting used to. I may actually enjoy it one of these days. Don't know if that's a good goal to be working towards or not!
In the past three days Sawyer has 1-knocked his head above his eye on a table at school, leaving a nice bruise... 2-ran ~literally ran~ straight into the corner of the counter on our kitchen island and got a nice goose egg on his hairline in the middle of his forehead... and 3-was playing catch with the big boys in the neighborhood and took a baseball in the mouth resulting in a nice fat lip. I'm hoping he's taking a breather from the injuries here for awhile.
Already have plans every weekend until Christmas. Yes, life is insane.
I do have most of my backlogged posts written up, it's just a matter of going thru so many photos, resizing and plugging them in the posts before I'm ready to publish them. Slowly but surely. :)
Last year was so rushed, crazy and chaotic that I wasn't sure we'd attempt the big Balloon Glow in Forest Park again this year. But we did. And we had a ton of fun!
We still didn't get out there as early as would be ideal... we momentarily had visions of going out early early afternoon and hanging out at the park all day before the balloons arrived. That moment only lasted until we remembered we now actually had a kid in school all day, not to mention the fact that I had the baby all afternoon. So in reality we didn't head out the door until 5 o'clock or so and after stopping for a quick bite to eat, that put us at the park at about 6pm. It was already on the verge of scarily packed, but we found a decent parking spot with a good escape exit route (which is equally important at events like this!!!) and made our way to the field of balloons.
We found the Malones there and spread a blanket and parked it for awhile with them and the (br)other Malones and some other friends. The kids ran around for awhile with the soccer ball and rolling down hills while we waiting for the sun to go down for the rising of the balloons.... Soon they started lighting them up!....
[it'd be fair to warn you of the copious amounts of pictures in this post. more time with the balloons this year meant many more pictures... something I'd still love to go do to just to play around with the camera sometime. it's so hard to take pictures in the midst of the balloons; they all light their fires at different times, unpredictably, sporadically lighting up a whole area for just a few seconds... tricky with a camera on manual! it's fun to see what different shots on different settings at different times will get you though!!]
Ryan's valiant attempt at a picture... this was his best shot with the camera still switched on manual shooting.
Do you know this one? The one with the sleeping baby... Where the baby is due to wake and eat in the next now to thirty minutes and you know if you start a chore/project/anything, then the minute you've started on it, the baby will wake up. In fact, he's already started stirring and grunting here and there. But if you sit down to wait for him to wake, to blog read a book or relax and watch some tv for just a few minutes because you know he'll really wake up any minute... he'll sleep for another hour.
What to do, what to do....
*This is the week I started caring for an infant full-time, for those of you who are wondering what the heck I am talking about. Ahhh... back to the baby days.
Ryan left early Saturday and is out of town all week for a convention/conference thingie for work. I took him to the airport myself, because one- I have a thing about taking him to the airport myself and saying goodbye (because heaven forbid, what if it's the last trip he takes... I want to be the one seeing him off and getting a kiss at the very last moment. Crazy, I know.) and two- I jokingly reminded him that the last few times he's left for any real length of time (as in longer than a weekend), one of our vehicles has ended up breaking down on me. Meaning, I need a back-up car at home rather than him parking one at the airport. I MEANT THAT JOKINGLY.
Mostly jokingly anyway. I certainly didn't think it would be true. Again.
So I was left with two cars sitting in the garage this week for me to choose from. Our 4Runner, "my" car, and the little Mazda3, "his" car. Just so you know, neither is in tip-top shape right now; when we last had the tires on the Toyota rotated this summer they told us something (I have no idea what) was broken and leaking in the back wheel... like part of the strut or something? I really don't know. But whatever it was, it was no big deal, nothing that was imperative or would even be noticeable to us. Just to get it fixed someday. The last week or so though, we've noticed the car is a little stinky when we get to wherever we're going... smells like burning fluid or burning brakes or something. Ryan thinks it probably has to do with whatever needs repairing back there so we were planning on taking it in when he gets back. The Mazda, not to be the forgotten child, has been acting up, popping out of third gear... sometimes quite violently (read: loudly). Quite annoying, but is otherwise okay. Just have to shift into third gingerly... or I've been skipping it altogether. We have been pretty lucky with vehicles. Really never had any problems, ever, with any of them. Never any emergencies, never any big surprises. Except, apparently, when my husband leaves town.
Not realizing this is now an established fact, I took the kids out to Columbia today to be with the Laughlins for Evan's dedication at church and to hang out for the day. I went ahead and took the Mazda, slightly concerned about the Toyota's case of the stink, but really I hardly gave that a thought; we just normally take the Mazda on these longer trips thinking of gas mileage.
Well, once we left town, the Mazda was acting up horribly today. Third gear?... it was having none of it. And maybe I was imagining it, but I felt like 4th was starting to slip too. Okay, I think, so we just need to get home and lay low for the week. I don't really want to push my luck with it --especially with Ryan out of town! And it's not like I have anymore 100 mile roadtrips planned this week...
So we head home this evening and I get about 50 miles down the road - still 40 miles from home- and suddenly, driving 75 down the freeway, I hear a faint thumping/flapping/dragging sound. My stomach sank. I knew it was something under the car. And I knew I hadn't run over anything. It was something from my car. Crap! What if this poor transmission, the one we've been ignoring it's pleas for help for the past few weeks, what if the transmission was actually falling out of the car?!!
I slowed and moved over, biding my time until the next exit, almost two miles ahead. I made it to the exit (all the while watching for other drivers trying to flag me down, envisioning my car catching on fire, flames shooting out from under the body) and pulled over to have a look. Turns out the bottom of piece of plastic under the engine decided to come halfway unbolted. All torn up from the road and missing a bolt or two, basically the whole passenger side of the undercarriage cover thingie (I know- probably totally the wrong words) was hanging down. It was still attached at the very front and driver side of the car.
Now first of all, I can barely see or reach under the car, given that it's a sport model, lowish to the ground. I can't get under the car, all I can do is reach. I realize I can't reattach the cover. Possibly if I had tools (big possibly), but I didn't. And I couldn't remove the whole thing... again with the tools. But here was this huge hard plastic piece hanging on the ground under my engine and I had stupidly pulled into a parking spot in this parking lot. Meaning even if it would hurt nothing to leave this piece dragging until I got home, I couldn't really reverse with this hard edge hanging down. Ugh.
I called Ryan. "The car broke." "What?" "The car broke." "You're kidding." "The Car. Broke." "You're joking" "I am not joking. And I hope you know you're never leaving again."
I was pretty close to calling our emergency roadside number. In the end, since it seemed the actual engine was still intact, I managed to finagle it to where I kind of shoved the cover back up into the frame it came unbolted from. I sort of bent and pulled and turned it inside out to get it to stay. And got back on the freeway.
I got about 25 miles and heard it fall down again. So we pulled over and stopped for dinner and I got under the car and shoved it back up again before we got back on the road. And then we made it home.
And I am officially never driving again when Ryan's out of town.
Okay, I'm skipping right over all my half-written backlogged blog posts and cutting right in here with a very important post. Or a very cute post anyway. I'll shut up and let the pictures do the talking...
First day of Preschool!
loving his backpack
walking to school (we were lucky enough to get into the huge-waiting-listed preschool at the end of our street!)
posing one last time before heading in to class
He was so very excited and completely loved it. I just can't believe this is my baby boy.
For comparison, this was the first first day of preschool in this family, three years ago...
Savannah at three-and-a-half... and Sawyer was just a baby at 10 months old.
How in the world did we get from that to this already?
Teach us to number our days right Lord, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. -Psalm 90:12
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"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so." ~Mary Jean Iron
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