On Top of the World...Or at least Utah!

Next week officially starts the 1/2 marathon training (Top of Utah). I'll log it here. I'm following a marathon training schedule (in The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer), so I should really kick some tail at this by the time Aug. 28th rolls around.


Week 1
Day 1: 3 miles (Monday)
Day 2: 4 miles (Tuesday)
Day 3: 3 miles (Thursday)
Day 4: 5 miles (Saturday)


I'm up to running 3 miles before stopping and then I just take 20-50 steps and start again and run the 4th mile. It seems really silly, but I need those 20 steps. I've got to be careful because I think it's becoming a habit.



Got the farmer blow down in my left nostril just in time for Spring when my nose no longer runs when I run. It's just as well, my right nostril has some sort of deformity, causing snot to spray erratically and form crusts on my awesome running pants from my sis-in-law Lisa.

Got my playlist, but it needs some tweaking. When I run without music I don't do so hot, but with it I can't hear my own panting, so I go farther. Some of these songs slow me down though, so I've got to tweak them a bit.

Playlist:



Just a Girl- No Doubt






Girls and Boys- Good Charlotte






Sunday Mornning- Marroon 5 (soon to go the way of the dodo)






3 a.m.- Matchbox 20






Yeah!- Usher






Sexy Back- Justin Timberlake






Hey Mama- Black Eyed Peas






Jack and Diane- John Mellencamp






Dancing Queen- Abba






You Shook Me All Night Long- AC/DC






Cruel Summer- Bananarama (sadly, it may be out too)






You Spin Me Right Round- Billy Idol






Uptown Girl- Billy Joel






Livin' on a Prayer- Bon Jovi






Karma Chameleon- Culture Club






Pour Some Sugar on Me- Def Leapord






Out Last Night- Kenny Chesney




I need more suggestions. Jason has nearly every song known to man on his Itunes, but I only made it through the J's and then skipped to Usher because I remembered YEAH! And since I stopped listening to R&B and HipHop when my husband got satellite radio (which seems to know NO bounds) I'm really the same loser I thought my parents were when they listened to music from the 70's.

So help a sister out and get me running. This benefits you too, ya know. You won't have to witness the two heifers I carry around at the local pool. Although I still can't promise you they'll be any color other than pasty.

Adoption! Spread the Word!

To the Relative Who Doesn't Understand
by RevaBeth L. Russell
(my awesome neighbor)

When I was young I played with dolls and imagined.
Other interests replaced the dolls
But I would remember.
Marriage,
And as a couple we made plans
But we were to wait and wait
And wait.
After time
I kenw that I would never be a birth mother.

Well-meaning people had their suggestions.
Silent crying
We smiled and nodded.

A nine-month pregnancy couldn't seem as long as my
two-year adoption pregnancy,
A doctor checking your weight, blood pressure
must be easier
Then the official lady
Checking
On your fitness
For parenthood.
No stranger questions a birth mother about her money,
marriage, home, and childhood.
No letters of reference are sought as to her character.

Well-meaning people discussed adoption,
Telling of "so-and-so" and "it only took them two months."
We smiled and nodded.

Listening to the heartbeat
Feeling the strength of a kick
The final minutes of labor
Sitting carfully on stitches
Could not bring more pain than
"It will be eight months to a year
Before we can process your papers."

Well-meaning people inquired how many children we had
Telling fo the joys we were missing.
We smiled and nodded.

When your boy was placed in our arms
And as a couple you realized this child was yours, forever,
Did you ever think that even when our child is placed in our arms
We would still haave to wait
For the adjustment period to be over
For the judge to say he was ours
Legally.

Well-meaning people say,
"Oh, you had your baby the easy way."
We smile and nod politely.

I want you to acknowledge that this child is mine.
I have cried the same tears as you.
I have said the same prayers as you.
Your child was born from under your hears,
And close to your heart you fed him.
My child was born from within my heart,
And close to my heart he was fed.

Now I plead that you will accept him and his differences.
He  may not look like us
As would one carrying our genes,
But he is ours:
Carrying our training, care, and love.  I watch him now at play...imagining...
And these words never rang more true:
"For unto us a child is born,
And unto us a son is given."

Had the pleasure of taking pictures of this wonderful, waiting to adopt couple. 

Dave and Michelle Mitchell

daveandshelladopt.blogspot.com

See other photos here.

Kiss a Redhead Day

There have been claims that redheads will be extinct within the next 20 years.  Bogus, it turns out, although I won't pretend it didn't make me feel the tiniest bit special.  Especially since I don't have the chance to pass on my recessive to my bebes.  But today you should find a redhead to love anyway. 

Blondes have Farrah Faucet, Brunettes Audrey Hepburn,

We get Ronald McDonald.

And I've been telling my husband for years about my giant, superhuman threshold for pain.  It also takes me about 75% more anasthesia than the blonde sitting next to me at the dentist.  He scoffed.  Then I got some evidence.  From Prevention Magazine, "If nature's given you glorious, glamorous red hair, you may also have a secret susceptibility to pain. As a result, you may need 20 percent more anesthesia to be completely knocked out before a medical procedure than either a blonde or a brunette would, according to a study from the University of Louisville. And you might need higher-than-usual amounts of other pain relievers as well."  A "susceptibility to pain,"?   That's all wrong.  But I am right about the anasthetic.  I laugh in the face of laughing gas.

It's not Ginger (as our Aussie and Brit friends call us), Day, but after years of comments like, "I'd rather be dead than red on the head," directed in my mother's childhood at her gorgeous strawberry locks, several blistered sunburns from the pale skin associated with red hair, and the inability to wear certain (and many) shades of red or pink, not to mention the one about a certain redheaded stepchild, I want some love today.  This is as reasonable a day as I could come up with. 

Alas, my kids and their teachers will hold festivities associated with the St. of the day, but in my heart it's all about redheads.

I made a delish dinner in honor of red..ahem..of Patrick, salmon and mashed potatoes with leeks, onions, and garlic.  MMMMM, GOOD!  Then I attempted "pots of gold" with Jello, but the peach flavor does not turn out the same golden color it displays on the packaging (and who wants to eat lemon jello), so we had pots of pink. 

We were a day late with our FHE lesson, but I used this one that a friend e-mailed me last week.  What an awesome lesson to teach kids this week!!!  My favorite quote is, "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the more I work, the more I have of it!"...Thomas Jefferson

Liv insisted on catching a leprechaun, so this is what we came up with.  How ironic that Luke shops at Reams, "the green store" as my chickies call it, and left this in his wake to stir excitement/suspicion in the midget crowd.   

On second thought, Luke's handwriting looks an awful lot like mine.  Needs work.

And here's the perfect ironic Irish Blessing of the day,
"May your home always be too small to hold all your friends."

Tomorrow is my Bunco day.  Therefore all of my living room furniture has been distributed to my kids' rooms. 

I saved the St. Patty's day menu for the ladies.  Jason doesn't appreciate Corned beef and cabbage in a New England Boiled Dinner, Irish Soda Bread, Frango Mints, and Limeaid Pie.  Bring on the addition and the laughter!

Makes Me Tickle

Liv has some sort of disorder.  I have no other way to categorize it. 

I was getting ready for our Valentine's Day date and she came to watch me.  After a minute she says, "That makes me tickle."

"What makes you tickle?" 

"When you put on too much make-up or wear funny shirts like that."

I smiled.  How sweet.  But there was an ackward pause.

"A good tickle or a bad tickle?"

"A bad tickle."

This comes from a girl who, in a heartbeat would choose the following dress when we window shop...

Liv in 10 years (in her wildest dreams)

F.Y.I. I found this under "ghetto prom dress" on google.

YOU HAVE TO DO THAT SEARCH AND LOOK FOR THE BLACK GIRL IN THE LONG WHITE "GOWN"!

I guess she prefers I look like my usual slob.

She catches "Toddlers and Tiaras" commercials (confession: I watch those shows when they go to bed hehehe), and begs me to do a pageant.  ick.  But I have to look like a cow in order for her tummy not to tickle.

I guess if I hadn't "let myself go" she wouldn't know the difference.