U Can Do It (in poo)

It was an expensive run. 

Yesterday I felt like I was slacking off on the exercising front.  Hm, let me rethink that.  I think I'm just concerned that I haven't made the half-marathon distance yet and I feel my confidence wavering from time to time.  I've even shortened a few runs lately. 

So I went out, thinking I'd do a long run and planning on doing the 13.1 miles accomplished.  It was a bright, sunny day.  I had some tan lines when I got in from the portion I ran out from under the trees.  I was tired initially.  I wasn't sure I could make it, but then I got into a stride.

I had run about five miles when I passed some strangely arranged horse poo on the trail.  I turned around and realized someone had arranged the poo into a message... it said, very clearly, "U CAN DO IT."    Who arranges poo on a trail?!  I ran on, took it as a message and about a half-mile later was kicking myself for not getting a picture of it.  Ah well. 

So I'm in a stride now.  I'm doing mental mile markings in my mind and adding a new leg to the run so that I can get back to the house at close to the 13.1 mile mark.  A little early and I'll just run around the neighborhood to finish it off.

At around nine miles the skies grow ominously dark.  The bright sun is gone.  Then, there is thunder.  At about 9.5 miles there is rain.  The rain turns into crazy downpour.  This is the bit where the run got costly.

I am drenched in sweat.  There is nothing on me that is anything other than dripping in sweat and rain.  My little phone, my favorite iPhone 4S with the cool heart rate monitor that only works with the 4S is in a water-resistant pouch.  But resistant doesn't hold up to deluge of rain.

At the ten mile mark the sound had gone out.  I hoped water got into the speaker and I just couldn't hear it.  At about eleven miles I got to the watering hole.  I pulled out the phone to find the LED "flash" permanently on and the main button not working.  Blast it.  I was still 1.5 or more miles from home. 

13.1 miles didn't matter now, I just needed to get home and blow-dry the phone.  I got in, and crazy enough was able to check the distance on the running app I use and end the workout.  But the phone was a casualty.  There are lots of technical things to explain about what bits work and what bits don't work but Apple said, sorry, new phone for you.  

The iPhone 5 announcement is in five days so for now I'm passing on replacing the phone and borrowing my husband's old iPhone 4. 

The Big Boy Update:  Traumatic Meals.  He is going through a phase with eating lately.  Just woken up?  Too upset to eat.  Over-hungry?  Too upset to eat.  Thinks you might offer him food instead of elephants for a meal?  Too upset to ponder any food item, even if it's his favorite.  We're discovering two things.  First, do not try to get him to eat anything.  NEVER shove a spoon at his mouth when he's upset.  This will make him less-inclined to eat the food.   Second, don't offer an alternate food.  What you offered him was find, he just needs to calm down.  What seems to work best is putting him in the high chair (or better yet, let him climb in himself,) sit the food down and walk away.  In less than two minutes he'll most likely be eating the food. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Napping on the floor.  She likes her bed, but she can be convinced the floor with a fluffy blanket is a nice napping spot.  She's trying to get comfortable on the floor now.  Bambi is on the TV and she's got her pacifier.  We'll see if she makes it to sleep...

Fitness Update:  12.6 miles, one dead phone.

Someone Once Said:  If you get more mileage out of your sins by regretting them, that’s your business.

I Can't Tell You, You'll Have to Read About It

When I get an idea during the day on what I plan to write here, I send myself a note.  While I'm waiting to get to the computer to get the idea written, I do some thinking about what I'm going to write.  Sometimes when I start to write, it comes out pretty much like I'd planned it; sometimes it ends up entirely differently.  But I have a general rule, I don't talk about the post before I write it.

For some reason, talking about it before I write about it can abort the idea.  Am I processing it in some way by speaking on the subject aloud?  I know from a therapeutic perspective, talking about something can help a person deal with a difficult issue or help someone make a decision they've been putting off, or even have terrible, awful, painful memories fade somewhat.  All that, just from talking about it out loud.

If that's the case, I shouldn't have any stress, worries, or problems in my life because I sure do wedge in enough talking throughout the day.  But that aside, something happens in our brains when we verbalize thoughts that changes things.  The brain is both curious and wonderful.

The Big Boy Update:  Rail Reconnaissance, or how long will self-preservation prevail?  He keeps getting up on the railing of the crib, but so far, he's not willing to get out.  You hear him talking and calling your name.  You go investigate.  He's sitting straddled on the railing.  He's very pleased with himself.  But why is he not out?  Does he have a sense of self-preservation?  Does he remember that it hurt when he fell out before?  He's started climbing up on the backs of sofas, comfy chairs, dining room table chairs, office chairs, and he's caused a few to fall over.  So far, he hasn't injured himself.  But I fear it's coming.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We can keep her!  Whew, sighs of relief all around; my daughter likes her father's pasta.  Had she rejected it, well, I don't want to think about the ramifications.  On the hair growth front, it's still blonde and growing.  She's got a second layer of hair that seems to be coming in as well.  Soon it's going to be bows and ribbons.  From a verbal perspective, she seems to be able to approximate sounds given the right situation.  We were on the bridge the other day and daddy and her brother were practicing saying, "echo" as there is a nice sound bounce in the vaulted area of the house.  After we'd all said it numerous times we realized she was saying two syllables repeatedly, and they sounded somewhat like, "echo."  I think she was just joining in on the verbal fun, but it was impressive to see the connections she had made.

Someone Once Said:   'Sense’ is never ‘common’. The two terms are contradictory.

Editing Isn't Rewriting

I said way back when I started this blog that I was going to write, press publish and walk away from the computer.  Oh, what a big fat lie. 

But it's not as bad as I had feared it would be.  I got my stop watch out yesterday when I wrote my blog entry and it didn't take me more than twenty minutes from start to walking away, five sections written, post complete.  But I did and I do check things after I press publish. 

What I've found over time is that I have more confidence in how I write.  I used to read and revise, rewrite and redo until I could have stood up in front of a crowd and recited my composition from all the rehashing and re-editing.  Mostly, it was lack of writing experience in a conversational voice.

Two-thirds of a year here of writing into the void and I've settled into a grove that's not hard and is even enjoyable.  Some days, my husband must laugh at me when I say, "I've got to get to the computer," because he knows I want to get something out; and I want to do so in the blog.

I realized though that it's okay with me that I re-read my posts.  I'm not worried about spending too much time making a blog post, "perfect," because hey, it's just opinions and stories, and it's not being graded.  But I do like to make sure I didn't leave words of sentences out and didn't typo or misspell too many things.

So I do edit my posts.  But only up to the point that the email daemon sends out the completed post.  Any mistakes at that point I get to live with.

The Big Boy Update:  Potty training has begun in earnest.  They do potty training at school.  We sent in ten training pants (not diaper pull-ups) at the start of school, but so far, none have been sent home.  Last week's summary email from his teacher said potty training would start this week.  After school today, in a plastic container in his school bag, were three pair of training pants.  Yes, that's one pair an hour.  There is work to be done.  But it's a start.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Stability Tester.  I remember this stage with my son.  Cruising around, trying to climb things, and making sure everything is stable with a resounding, "pat pat" on each new surface.  She tests the floor, the table, the sofa, your leg.

Fitness Update:  New runner.  And he's inhuman.  Seriously.  Okay, he's a dog.  Uncle Jonathan wanted to see how far his dog, Dexter, could run.  Dexter, who seems to have unbounded energy when it comes to escaping.  On his first day out, Dexter did over a 5K. 

Someone Once Said:  Honor thy father and thy mother where anyone can see you. But once you leave home, live your own life. Don’t let them lead you around by the nose.

Grapefruits and Tangerines

Have you known people who lost weight, only to gain it back in short order?  You're so proud of them and then also sad with them that it was so difficult to keep the weight off.  I don't want to be one of those people.

I've lost my weight, and I want to keep it off.  But I'm exercising more now than I have since I was in junior high doing competitive gymnastics.  So I'm having to look at things in a different light.  If I want to build up muscle, I'm going to possibly have to gain some weight.  But how much?  And over what time frame?  I don't know. 

I keep thinking about the five pound differential of fat versus muscle.  Five pounds of fat is about the same dimensions as three grapefruits while five pounds of muscle is about three tangerines.  So how many grapefruits have I lost and how many tangerines do I need to adjust my weight for?  I don't know.  I'm trying to find a good balance. 

The Big Boy Update:  The pacifier's days are numbered.  He's close to twenty-one months now and we've decided the remnants of the pacifier dependency need to go.  He gets it at night, and sometimes at nap.  Never during the day or in the car.  But he can and will sleep without it.  We just need to tough out a few nights or weeks maybe until he is accustomed to not having it.  Plan:  start next week.  We'll see how firm we are or if we cave and give it to him because we're the ones that are tired and don't want to have to deal with him taking longer to get to sleep.  Think firm thoughts for us...

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Balloon Wars.  Yesterday we got a balloon as we left Red Robin at lunch.  My son and daughter were playing with it on the way home.  She would scream, like he had hurt her, but the only thing that had happened was she didn't have any string to hold.  He figured this out and would laugh and hand her back a bit of string.  Then she would laugh.  When we got home we could see this in action:  holding the balloon string, she's laughing and all smiles; take away the balloon string and she screamed like she'd just been mortally wounded.  It was pretty funny.  We got it on video and tried very hard not to laugh while she alternated laughing and having fits of anger.

Fitness Update:  Day of rest.  Day of cake.  No no, ugh, yes.  I bought a cake at the grocery store.  One of those with the fluffy airy white icing  It's a small cake—the smallest I could get—but it's still here and I'm still eating on it.  Tomorrow, more exercise, less cake.

Someone Once Said:  To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.

Serial Killer Park

When my neighbor and I run together we run through the beautiful, large, natural park with camping areas, lakes and great trails that's just across the street from our neighborhood.  It's a well-populated park as there are cars parked in the parking areas all day long from early morning to late in the evening.  There are bikes and strollers and even horses (and yes, horse poo) on the trails.  It's a well-known, much beloved nature spot for people and families from all around.  But serial killers?

Not that have been caught or even theorized.  And statistically speaking, serial killers are few and far between.  It's television that has sensationalized the impact of serial killers in our society.  There are multiple shows, fiction and documentary, just on the lives and behaviors of serial killers. And they all depict them in the woods.

They show footage of beautiful parks where the serial killer waits to acquire new victims or dumps the old victims.  And it looks just like our park.

My neighbor and I know we're being a bit paranoid to think about this, but we do feel more comfortable running together in the mornings.  Truthfully, we have a far greater chance of running into a cross snake or getting bit by a brown recluse spider than having any type of altercation with anyone interested in anything other than exercise, fitness and camaraderie.

We've seen a lady, or is it a man, well, we're still not sure, walking with a dog many times.  No, that's not really accurate.  We've seen this person standing with a complacent dog just looking at an empty trail.  Is this reconnaissance?  This person is older, so we were thinking—and I have to emphasize here that our imagination is running wild and we're having the best time coming up with crazy theories—if he/she has made it this long without being caught, they're clearly good at what they do..

Uncle Jonathan suggested that maybe this older person was bringing in prey, with that complacent white Labrador, to their son.  Hey, another good theory, right?  There is a single house that abuts the park and this person is always within range of that house.  Could that be their lair of horror? 

My neighbor and I have made a point to be friendly to the person, something we do to everyone we pass, because it's morning and we're out there gabbing and we're getting exercise and we're having fun.  The first few times we said hello, we barely got a nod.  Now, we get a wan smile.  We've each looked at different features and I think it's a lady.  She has loose-fitting clothing on, but she has a female's chest under it I believe.  She also has short greying hair, but it's longer than a traditional man's hair style.

We feel terrible about this, you know... this crazy speculation about malicious, evil-doers in our nice park across the street; about our plans to purchase pink Tazers and who goes for the groin and who goes for the eyes.  But sometimes, you have to have something crazy to talk about to distract you from the breath that isn't going to keep coming, the watering hole that's two miles away and the six more miles and four more big hills we have to go before we get home.

Otherwise, everything about, every single experience so far, and we should nickname our park, "Happy People Park" instead.

The Big Boy Update:  Ships and Shapes and Colors, oh my!  We have a collection of tub boats with sails.  They're fun to play with in the tub, but they're educational as well.  Each ship is a color and has a matching, removable sail of the same color.  Each sail has on it a picture of a basic shape (triangle, square, circle, star, etc.) and the way the sail connects to it's color-matching boat is through a similarly-shaped foot.  So, for instance, the green boat has a picture of a star on the sail and the connection from sail to boat is star-shaped.  The wrong color sail won't fit into another boat.  And until just recently, my son had no idea that there was some sort of order going on.  In just the past few weeks, he can say the colors, many of the shapes and understands the sails and boats have a pairing.  Last night for the first time when I dumped the boats and sails into the tub he started looking for matches and in short order had outfitted all the boats with sails.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Babbles.  She is just starting to babble.  Not just one sound that's repeated in a chant-type fashion, but a series of distinct little syllables when she's investigating an item or looking at you while you hold her in your lap.  She had a whole conversation with Uncle Jonathan last night. 

Fitness Update:  18.2 miles in twenty-six hours across three runs.  Most distance over time yet.  And my legs are tired.  Although from a cardiovascular perspective, running today was much easier to get started.  If my legs weren't overworked, I think a long run today would have been much easier than yesterday.  We're taking tomorrow off.  Today... maybe a beer leftover from the neighborhood party to celebrate Labor Day.

Someone Once Said:   I laugh because I dare not cry.

Brick Dancing

I attended a fancy dinner last night.  I don't go to fancy events all that often.  I got all fancied up.  I wore my fancy clothes and I even wore my new fancy high heels.

My feet aren't accustomed to high heels.  Not with all the radial retread, steel-belted tenni-pumps I've been wearing lately.   A week ago after dropping my son off to school my mother-in-law and I went to the fitness store I frequent.  And there was a store selling lightly-used clothes next door.

She and I went in and she found me some shoes.  Shoes I would have never, ever picked up.  Shoes with (and I do not lie) five-inch heels.   I have never owned shoes of such altitude.  But they were so comfortable with a nice fat heel and truthfully, one of those inches was a freebie because the toe was about an inch platform too.  So we decided I couldn't possibly manage to carry on without them.

I had new cool, crazy fun shoes for the fancy dinner.  I knew they'd hold up to the evening.  But would my legs?  Would I disgrace my family by falling on my face?  It was a distinct possibility.  Had I known at the outset that there would be a large set of stairs to descend, I would have called in sick without hesitation.

As I put them on, I noticed they were barely worn.  This is a recipe for disaster with heels.  I don't know if the men know about this, but we ladies in new shiny-bottomed, spiky, wobbly shoes can cut down on our chances of bodily harm by scuffing up the soles.

The first time someone told me to take my brand new shoes out on the concrete and twist around, kick like a chicken and generally mess up the soles, I thought they were crazy.  Five minutes later, I understood as I slipped all over the carpet.

So last night before we left, I went out under the deck and did some fancy brick dancing.  After that, the dinner went well, my calves sustained me, even through two glasses of wine.  So now, my fancy shoes are back in the closet, awaiting the next fancy function.

The Big Boy Update:  It's a big boy update day.  Multiple things.  First of all, this morning during the nap that wasn't happening, I went upstairs to find him straddled across the top railing.  I convinced him to get back in and then we got up.  Our days are numbered on this whole crib thing.  From a verbal standpoint, he's saying so much, we can't keep up.  Yesterday he said to me while trying to put a nozzle onto the vacuum hose, "Oh, this.  How?  Help."  I understood it because I could see how he was thinking it through.  How that particular piece went on the end and how when he couldn't figure it out he asked for help.  All within a ten second span.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Doggie.  Standing Up.  Straw.   First, she can say doggie.  She likes the dog, she likes to laugh at the dog and she can say "daaah-geeee" consistently.   She didn't know how to suck out of a straw yesterday, but with some practice at lunch today, she figured it out.  And even better, this morning, she's started to do the release and stand for a few seconds before falling or dropping to crawl.  It looks like walking may be entering her mind soon.

Fitness Update:  Mr. Smells So Good.  Several days without running and both my neighbor and I were nervous we'd make our long run weekly goal this morning.  We made eleven miles, but it wasn't our easiest run.  The strangest thing happened as we were approaching the last leg and eagerly looking forward to the watering area coming up; there was a fit, shirtless, sweat-covered man that ran past us.  That isn't exceptional, we run past many people during our runs, some twice as we run around the same loop in opposite directions.  But in this case, after he had run by, we both got this amazing delicious smell of fresh flowers, bushels-full of berries and honey, and it came from him.  Was it from the one item of clothing he had on?  His sweaty shorts?  It was so intense that as he ran one way, and we were delightfully sniffing his wake, we were able to follow the scent... backwards for the next minute.  It wasn't a laundry detergent smell I'd ever encountered, and if there is a perfume they make that smells that good, I want it because while not a feminine smell, it most definitely wasn't a masculine one.   Suffice it to say, we hope we run past, no, behind, Mr. Smells So Good at some point in the future.

Someone Once Said:  The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me to be highly improbable—from table tapping to the superiority of their children—has never been plumbed.

Friends Are Where You Find Them

I didn't understand the word, "peers" when I was young.  I didn't get that it meant someone on an equal footing with you in in some way.  For instance, your class mates in sixth grade are your peers.  But your teacher and her assistant aren't.  That's the age I was when I learned the word, and it was many years later that I really had a good grasp on the full meaning.  Another word that always confused me is, "casualty" but that's a topic for an entire blog post.  But seriously, if you're one of the dead people in a battle, how the heck is that casual?  Honestly, talk about confusing a kid.

So peers.  There are levels of peers, and commonly our friends and people we spend time with and care about the most are closer peers than other people we know.  But to me, friends are where you find them.

The lady who cleans my house has been a dear friend for many years.  She is a generation older than I am and she has different educational background and has very little in common with me from a social or hobby standpoint.  And yet, she is one of my close friends and she feels like family.

Do you know someone who is great friends with their hairdresser?  Have you talked about them behind their back to only discover years later that your new hairdresser is just the coolest person you know and you find them to be the perfect friend, dispite how you initially met?

Hairdresser, manicurist, cashier at the grocery store, waitperson at your favorite resturant, cleaning person, these aren't people we would have initially expected to become friends with, because the circumstances under which we met aren't those of a peer relationship.  And yet it seems we can find friends in the most unexpected places.  And once you've found those friends, the friendship is what you make of it, regardless of the dynamics of the situation in which you initially met.

The Big Boy Update:  Vacuum Technician.  He has a love affair with vacuums.  He likes to say the word, drag the apparatus around, help you with the hose and change out attachments.  Need twenty minutes to get something done?  Just give him the vacuum cleaner and associated components and he'll not even notice you've left.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Here, have mine.  We're out of town and the room the children are staying in at Nana and Grandpa's has two cribs in close proximity.  They can sleep through each other crying, but when they've slept for long enough, one waiting up will cause the second one to wake up in short order.  They like to stand up in their cribs facing each other and talk back and forth.  Apparently my daughter wasn't as happy as could be when she first woke up, so my son threw his pacifier at her crib and made it in.  As I was coming in, she was bending down to get his pacifier and put it in her mouth.  She suddenly wasn't unhappy anymore.

Fitness Update:  No running in several days.  I had a bad subluxation at T1 that went on for several days.  At the advice of my Chiropractor, I gave my neck some time to recover.  As I have C5-C7 fused, the vertebra just below the fusion, T1, has to do more work than it was designed to do.  After several days my neck has calmed down.  Just in time too as my nighbor and I have a long run scheduled for tomorrow morning. 

Someone Once Said:  Yield to temptation...it may not pass your way again!