Anna is playing softball again this spring. She is on a team w a different coach, but a couple girls are the same from last year. Funny thing about softball–the socks. One is purple and one is gold. The purple one went missing (wherever missing socks go) after 1 game. Instead of just wearing regular socks, she wore the gold one and a regular sock. Didn’t want you to think it was a gang sign or anything.

PS–the purple sock turned up this past weekend (after about 3 weeks on vacation). It was under our bed.  Imagine that–a dirty sock 2 feet from where the clothes got pulled off and dropped. Who would have thunk it??

Anna rounds 3rd on her way home.

Tyler is playing baseball (T ball really). He is the only kid who gets overhand pitched to and he SMACKS it every time. He has a great swing and really crushes it. He gets that from me I am sure. The main thing he has been doing though is GROWING! This past weekend I think he ate and laid around the entire weekend. He even put himself down for a nap (normal for me, NOT for this 6 year old boy).

What do growing 6 year old boys and lazy 77 year old dogs have in common?

A few weekends ago Paul and I went to see Simplified play at the Blind Tiger again. Their songs are great and it is always a good time (made better by the recent legislation banning smoking in bars and restaurants). Turns out the band’s drummer broke his wrist so they had a new kid who did ok. Just a little different vibe since he was new.

We like that band so much that their song, “Home,” was the one that we walked down the aisle to at our wedding. Lyrics:
Never thought I would be the one who,
Found someone to make me feel like you do,
It’s true I dreamed of you,
And you came in right on cue,

At the Simplified concert April 16.

Tyler and I were playing basketball one afternoon (which means I was rebounding for him–I am allowed 1 shot per 1 million Tyler shoots). All of a sudden he stops and runs over to the yard by the fence. He wanted to pick me flowers and insisted that I put them in water right away so they would last. Here is a photo of my gift:

What more could a girl ask for?

I have been reading quite a bit lately (Paul would say “as usual”). I recently finished House Rules by Jodi Picoult. She could make the phone book a best seller. LOVE her writing style. I also finished Walking on Broken Glass. It was ok. I am part way through The Irresistible Henry House. It is quirky so far. Henry House is an orphan who is adopted by a Home Ec Dept of a college in the 40′s so his 6 “mothers” rotate weekly for a semester, then he gets a new batch of mother every 4-5 months. It follows him through life to watch how messed up this makes him. It is supposedly fiction, but I think these programs really did exist. I introduced Paul to Bill Bryson and Dave Berry. That’s right, Paul is STILL reading! He even said his next book will be FICTION. Imagine that!!!

We have been riding a lot more now that the weather has warmed up. We are doing our first mountain ride this weekend. Can’t remember exactly how much climbing, but its a lot. Hopefully the bike Garmin will work to measure climbing feet like it is supposed to. Last weekend there was such a drastic change in pressure w that big storm that it said at one point that the incline we were on was 850% grade! WHOA!

Saturday was a little cooler than it has been but still not too bad so we were able to get in 38 miles.  Susan said that she had a new route that she wanted to try that she had driven the other day.  I was feeling adventurous so I said sure.  For those of you that don’t know, letting Susan pick a route and having her do it from memory is a BIG risk. She is still convinced that I am taking her new ways when we do our “normal” routes from the house that she has done hundreds of times now.  All and all the ride turned out nice.  We only spent about 4 miles on a 4 lane highway, and I only had to overrule her turn choice once. When we got on the highway I asked her if she knew this was coming and she said “no, I was listing to NPR on the way and not paying attention” which didn’t give me to much confidence that we would ever make it home. After we got off the highway was when I had to overrule the turn choice. I knew we were east of our house and she wanted to go east. Normally I would have gone with it because we could have gotten home (it would have just been a lot longer) but we didn’t bring food or money so we probably would have starved to death. For those of you that haven’t notices we aren’t exactly spindly little climbers and I proved this when we got home by eating a pizza and a half. Probably not the best way to lose weight before a ride like this but I still have plenty of time .

Sunday morning we went out early to try to beat the rain that was coming in. Of course as soon as we pulled out of the driveway it started raining. We decided to keep going and at least get in a short ride. In the end we made it 12 miles (we were originally planning on about 30), but we felt pretty good about it because 45 degree rain isn’t all that fun to ride in.

4:50am–alarm goes off

5:50am–leave house w kids and Paul

6:30am–triathlon training w Team in Training heroes @ Belews lake (what the kids call Quiet Lake b/c when we go at dark o’clock they have to be quiet since all of the locals are asleep.) We swam 1 mile, they road 4 miles and ran 1 mile. I ran 3 miles after the swim instead. Tyler found 2 more clams to bring home to join Clammy, the clam he found at Quiet Lake 2 weeks ago. Yes it is still alive and lives in his trash can. Did I tell you a nuc. power plant drains into this lake?

8:45am–left the lake, McDonalds for breakfast, drove home

10am–it takes all 4 of us three attempts to get Barton in to the cat carrier. Bluesy sat in the driver’s seat of my car with a dog leash on him. I take the cats to the vet for their check up. They are fine, Paul and I are $200 poorer.

Noon–home, kids play outside, Paul and I whirlwind clean, give them lunch and clean out my car.

1pm–pile in the Fit. Yes, 300 pounds of dog in the back, 2 kids in their car seats in the back, then Paul and I in the front.

1:30pm–return home, we forgot a wallet; back on the road everyone naps, except poor Paul.

2:30pm–arrive in Burlington for the Dog Splash, the dogs and people can swim in the Aquatics Center pool. It was CRAZY FUN until Maggie and Jake’s toe nails started bleeding from climbing out of the pool.

4pm–leave pool with kids in dry clothes and dogs w bloody feet.

5pm–arrive home, drop off dogs and fix dog feet to stop bleeding. Leave again for dinner

Losing track of time–Ate dinner at Mellow Mushroom. Natty Greene’s Golden Ale and Ceasar Salad pizza is my new favorite food.

7pm–home, pass out on the couch

We will ALL sleep well tonight. HOPEFULLY kids and dogs will sleep past 6am….

With me just getting back and Susan being sick I am not sure if either of us would have finished the race. Skipping the race allowed me to get in some easy training and get some work done around the house. It also allowed Susan time to sleep and get better. Even though I wish we could have done the race I think we made the right choice. Now the goal is to get Susan 100% as soon as possible. We have our first ride in the mountain planned for Saturday the 23rd. Her asthma gives her a hard enough time in the mountains without a cold.

I think it will be a lot of me standing around waiting to hold 4×4 beams in place above my head on a ladder while Paul measures and makes the cuts with the circular saw we got for our wedding shower.   So I plan to take pictures to post as we go so stay tuned!

What about the motto you ask? I guess if I am ditching goals, I should ditch mottos too, huh?

OK, off to wander aimlessly through life now…

So, here we are and according to the main page on our website, Paul and I race the White Lake Half Iron Triathlon in 8 days. 8 days?!?!? When did THAT happen?!?! I am only worried about my asthma now. I anticipate the race taking about 7 hours, which is hard enough w/out suffering from or recovering from respiratory illness. But alas, I have this motto…

NEVER FORFEIT AN ENTRY FEE!!!

Around 1 we went out for a 64 mile bike ride. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. Our plan for the day was to go exploring new roads which is one of my favorite kind of rides. We found a few new good roads to add to some of our current rides and a few dead end roads (but they were still nice to ride down). When we got home we did a easy 1 mile run which went well.

After the workout we ate grilled salmon, asparagus, and couscous (all at Susan’s request). On a side note, when Susan’s parents bought their new house they no longer needed the grill they had at the Crown Point house so they gave it to us.  This is the first time we have had a chance to use it and it was much easier to cook on than our old one which was really nice. We sat outside to eat, relax and enjoyed the weather.  That is about as good as a day can get!

Tomorrow’s weather is suppose to be like today and I am suppose to go for a 3 hour ride with Tamara in the morning (Susan will still be scrapbooking). I probably should wear some sunscreen because I got a lot of sun today but I am guessing that won’t happen. hopefully this weather is hear to stay because training like this is much nicer than the 25 degrees and 15 mph winds that we were training in for the marathon.

Sunday morning jam session

I wanted to add some pics to our site. Not much to say really. Paul has been playing his guitar a lot lately, which has made Anna want to play too. It makes Tyler sad he destroyed his drum set.

Paul, dogs and Barton (L corner of the couch)

The cats have really relaxed quite a bit in the last few months so there are some cute pictures of that too.

Lizardhead (Tyler's Webkinz) on Paulhead

I love this pic of Anna

Goal update: I am doing well at “active recovery.” Better than we are doing at completing unfinished projects, that is for sure. Taxes are done, Anna and I had some girl time (pic here too),

veggies suck but I learned that you get a TON of spinach for only a few calories so that is what is helping me get that goal checked off. Journaling is sketchy, but I have the rest of the week to get 1 more entry.

Tyler and Bluesy bonding

Still on a book slump, but I started Purpose Driven Life this week so perhaps it will be a hit. Everyone else in the world seems to love it according to the critics. Paul’s mom suggested that perhaps because I am on a slump I should write my own book (see bucket list to the right).

Saturday morning Tyler had a basketball game that he was very excited about. He told me before the game that he was going to get every rebound. It turned out that he was about right. There is another boy on his team that likes to get rebounds and the were about to kill each other. They were both in the game together in the 3rd period and the coach took Tyler out so the two of them weren’t playing at the same time because they were “too competitive with each other”. My mom was there and got a good laugh because I was the same way.

After the basketball game Susan and I ran 20 miles. We had a good run and the weather was really nice which made things easier. Our marathon is 19 days away and that was our last long run until the race. Our longest run that we have between now and the race is 7 miles so we are very excited! After our run we showered and went to Lauren and Elliot’s for dinner. I’m not even sure what time we left their house but I am pretty sure it wasn’t very late. We went home and went right to bed.

Sunday morning we got up and went for a ride with our friend Tamara. She called us that morning to see if we were still going because she knew we were running 20 miles the day before. I knew it was cold outside and wanted to say no (and she also wanted me to say no because of the cold) but I said we were still going. We are doing the 63 mile bike ride the day after the marathon so we have to get use to it. It was 30 degrees with a windchill of 24 when we left the house so we had a very uncomfortable ride, but Susan and I were both glad we went. I’m not sure if it was from the ride or the icing affect from being so cold but I was much looser after the ride.

After the ride Susan and I went to Biscuitville to get breakfast. When we got done ordering we had to tell the lady at the register that we really did only need two drinks and that all that food was just for the two of us. After we ate we picked up the kids, played with them, went to the grocery store, ate dinner and then it was time for bed. I need to figure out how to get 4 day weekends because that all went by way too fast.

We are still training for Myrtle Beach weekend. We might even be getting faster. Tonight we ran 9 miles in 93 minutes. I am usually a 12 min miler (and drag Paul down w me) so this was FAST for us! Plus it was about 30 degrees. ugh. Treadmill tomorrow–its supposed to be 12 in the morning. I did not move to NC for cold.

We have been watching lots of college hoops. Paul is having apoplexy over UNC’s performance lately. Can’t blame him. I don’t stay up past 8pm to watch them lose!

My goals? We have posted a fruit and veggie page. Check back often to see my progress. I am improving my eating habits slowly but surely thanks to Paul and his great cooking. I am attending the NC Women’s Conference in a couple weeks and very excited about that, especially as it relates to my search to be “well rounded” w/o trying to be Superwoman. I always did like Wonder Woman better anyway. I just know my goal for this week is to finally iron my khaki pants. Maybe tomorrow…

To add to it I went for a swim at lunch with the plan of swimming 1000 meters. About 500 meters into the swim I felt like I was slacking in the swim so I decided to pick up the pace and extend the swim to at least 1600 meters. In the end I did 1800 meters before I ran out of time.

We have a 3 mile run tomorrow and a 14 mile run on Sunday so hopefully I am back on track now.

When I got home I really didn’t feel like going running but when I finally got myself out the door I was going really fast. The 5K route at our house is very hilly and hard so I backed off the pace slightly after just under a mile to be ready for the first long hill. The turn around is on one of the hills and I got there at 13 minutes, which is fast for that run so I knew I was doing pretty good but figured my time would slow a lot on the way back because there is a long hard hill. With all the hills on this run a fast time for me is usually around 28 minutes, so I was surprised when I got home at 25:47.

So Bryan…even though it wasn’t my fastest time, I just beat your fastest time again tonight on a very hard course. If I would have been on the much flatter lunch time run course I would have been very close to that 22 minute time that we are trying to see who can make it to first (I also held back slightly because we have a 12 mile run tomorrow). Time for you to pick it up or this is going to be too easy to win!

I did a 3 mile run at lunch today and my hip was killing me, so back to stretching. On the plus side it is a BEAUTIFUL day here. It is in the mid 70′s and not a cloud in the sky. I couldn’t pass up a day like this because of a little hip pain!

1–It is 9:09pm and usually we are asleep by 8:30pm.

2–It is 9:10pm and we are about to eat dinner. This is a big deal b/c we usually eat between 5:30 and 6pm. Paul was STARVING by the time we finished our run.

3–This is 2 miles further than Paul has ever run.

4–We killed it! I am SUPER slow and make Paul slum it w me. But tonight we did our first 6 miles in 72 min (perfect 12 min miles as planned), then crushed a negative split w 64 min 2nd 6 miles! Same course!

5–It is crazy cold here for Halloween. It was about 58 when we started, dropped to about 43 at the end. Paul usually runs around in shorts and maybe a T shirt. Post shower he is in sweats, sweatshirt and a ski hat (they call them toboggans here…). Madness! But it could be cold on race day!

Myrtle, here we come!