Busy busy

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Carrie

Every day has its tasks. Today is a Wednesday, which makes it:
1) A recovery run day (did a 35-minute tempo run yesterday, which was super-fun in strong winds, but I’ll definitely deal with the wind in exchange for 45+ degrees in January!)
2) Dining room clean-up day (augh, my computer desk)
3) Church night, so therefore…
4) Simple dinner night (has to be consumed and cleaned up before we leave for church)

Trying so very, very hard to maintain a level of calm and predictability around this place, even as little complications creep in. Sam has a trip to one of the hippie-dippy middle schools tomorrow morning (and the other one next week), to shadow an older kid around the place and get a feel for things, in the ever-tense situation of “where the heck will I be next year?” Gabe is going through another bout of separation anxiety, with tears and pleas for hearts drawn on his hand before he leaves for school every morning. Swimming lessons are going, well, swimmingly for Sam, not so much for Gabe, though I may go broke on Pokemon cards, since they seem to motivate cooperation in Gabe more than anything else I’ve tried.

Sam’s officially signed up for a junior triathlon this summer. I took him with me to an expo this weekend, where he tried on a pair of little tri shorts and was immediately struck with a rip-roaring case of Quaker-level appalled modesty. Too short! Too tight! Not in public! We ran into a church friend a few minutes later, a man who does tris, and he tried to encourage Sam to “just do your thing, and nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing!” A friend of the man was there, and he offered to sell us a pair of knee-length jammers he’d bought for his grandson that hadn’t been worn; Sam seemed almost okay with that, so I agreed.

Carl, our friend, handed them off to us last night, and Sam tried them on in his room. For a moment, there was a strong sense of


…but then Gabe, watching from the side, jumped up and grabbed onto Sam’s leg. “YOU LOOK AWESOME!” he yelled. Sam decided they were fine. :mrgreen: (I’m pretty sure Gabe would be awesome to have in fitting rooms with you. Store should hire him. Reasonable rates!)

So, I hear there’s a football game this weekend. Since there are no Mountaineers or Packers involved, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t care less. You?

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What our words say about us

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Carrie

Apparently, sometime in the wee hours of yesterday morning, some avian creature met its demise in my backyard. Not that I’d know, of course; my personal knowledge come strictly from the news conveyed to me from my aghast and wide-eyed sons. Sam came running to the door to give me all the gory details – “No body, but feathers all over! And some patches of blood!” – and to try to get me to COME SEE. You know, as though we’d never met, and he had no clue that the only bird that freaks me out more than a live one is a messily dead one. Mmmm, no. This wasn’t a sight I needed to take in. :roll:

So we were in the car later, and Gabe started chattering about it. “And I think you need to have a body to have a real funeral, right, Mom?”

“Well, not necessarily. What if somebody drowned, and they couldn’t find the body? Their family could still have a funeral to say goodbye.”

“Okay, but Sam and [neighborhood friend] said ‘rest in peace.’ I don’t think that bird could rest in peace if it’s gone.”

I muttered, apparently not quietly enough, “It’s resting in pieces…”

Sam: “MOM! That’s awful! It was just a poor defenseless bird!”

Gabe, without a pause, replied, “You don’t know it was defenseless. Maybe it just lost!”


I swam today! Been waiting on my shoulder to heal properly enough to allow me to swim for a long time, and now I can do a breaststroke without more than occasional small twinges when I lose form! Still can’t do a crawl without pain, but I’m just happy to be back in the water. It brightened my whole morning.

Eric’s medical prep peaks tonight. I don’t intend to get into details, except to say that we both snorted when we read the section of the instructions that referred to me as Eric’s “responsible adult.” :lol: So, anyway, keep him in your (vague) thoughts for tonight and tomorrow. Poor guy.

Posted in Familial things, Fitness and Health | 1 Comment

Planning again

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Carrie

Sitting here with my little datebook in hand, making plans for races and training. It’s pickier when the races are shorter distances; there are more of them, so planning overlaps sometimes and needs tweaking, and the plans themselves involve speedwork, which then requires calculating the interval repeats into total mileage in my head to estimate for the week and stay “conservative.” I’m not looking out any further than March right now, but there are three races on my calendar in that stretch (for the locals, I’m considering the Lake Geneva Winterfest 5K, the Cullen 8K, and the Blarney Run 5K). It’s not that I couldn’t just go out and do them, little thought required, but one of the goals of the year is to race well. I want to see what I can do with my speed, you know?

Of course, this week, I’m taking things really easy, running-wise. I think I’m putting the kibosh on the Newton running shoes, once and for all, or at least for the foreseeable future. Every blasted time I put them on, my peroneal tendon – which developed tendonitis years ago, and that stuff is chronic – starts complaining, and it takes a solid period of babying it to get it to shut up again. I swear, I only went on a few very short runs this time wearing them, two weeks ago, and I’m still with the icing and resting. :roll: So this week I’m going to stick to other cardio for the most part and just let it be completely. I’m not a “Newton runner,” I guess.

Anyway, this week is already going to be goofy. The kids are off school today, which meant I had to go to the Y early to be home in time for Eric to head to work. Then on Wednesday, Eric’s got some medical tests for which I need to be on hand to help chauffeur him; might be able to get a workout in around it, but also possible I’ll want to be at his beck and call, so I’m not counting on anything. Saturday night is his company’s holiday party – a bit late, but nice to have, nevertheless. :mrgreen: Lots going on, so juggling will have to happen.

Honestly, though, I have to say that probably the main reason I’ve had success with fitness since I started running (five years ago in June!) is that I decided it wasn’t going to be “optional.” Exercise had to be non-negotiable, like a medication I need to take on a regular basis. It’s not something I allow myself to skip on the basis of “I don’t feel like it” – that way leads to more skipping, and more skipping, until I’d have completely fallen off. I know myself well enough to accept that. I try to plan no later than the night before for the following day’s workout; early morning sessions necessitate having the gear and clothes lying right beside my bed, so all I have to do is step into them and go. It took a long time to become habit, but now it is, and I’m happy about that.

Speaking of habits, housework calls. Trying to make Mondays “Kitchen Days.” Rockstar life! :roll:

Sundays are for bathrooms. I think I got more satisfaction from this than from the Packers game...

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Old, old, old

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Carrie

Among other things making me feel decrepit and ancient, we had the second middle school orientation. I don’t feel quite as frantic as I did when we were struggling to keep Sam out of his home elementary school; this middle school, although huge and with a reputation toward conform-or-be-bullied, sort of has the flavor of my own middle school: tons of what we used to call “related arts” classes (cooking, shop, technology, etc.), lots of extracurriculars, and a brief lunch period that seems to rely heavily on pizza. (Seriously, the teacher discussing lunch mentioned the pizza no less than five times within two minutes, including the “special pizza” on Fridays.) Part of me wants to believe that with a student population so large, there will have to be other boys like Sam around to, I dunno, share the load of being goofy and frequently strange. I mean, hey, I ran into an old friend there with whom I hadn’t spoken in a couple of years, and she’s nervous about her son going there, since he, too, tends to be the short, skinny kid who doesn’t fit into the group. Maybe Sam won’t be so alone?

Still crossing my fingers for Hippie School #1 or #2 (I visited the second one, and it turns out to be a smaller version of the first charter school in most ways). I get good feelings about Sam fitting in well in those. Heck, everybody I tell who knows Sam agrees. ;) But not going to get my hopes up too high; there are only 75 spots at HS#1 and 50 at HS#2. (Joy, I’d have no problem home-schooling Gabe, but I can’t see it working with Sam. Maybe he’s too much like me; I have enough trouble just getting through a single work session with him. I’ve been having him use Khan Academy to help with some math issues, and for some reason, he takes it as a insult to his pride whenever I so much as glance over his shoulder. Mom is NOT ALLOWED. :roll: )

We finally have snow. I’m already over it.

Posted in Familial things, Pictures and movies | 1 Comment

Mommy needs a recess

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Carrie

Told Mom I was going to make this shirt. She could have one, too, I said, since it affects her like it affects me; obviously, if I’m old enough to be sitting in a gymnasium for a freaking middle school orientation, then she, as my mother, must be ancient. ;)

But for real. This kid isn’t old enough for middle school!

Right? And obviously this girl isn’t old enough to have a kid old enough to go to middle school…

…shut up. :oops:

(Oh, the memory; she plays cruel, cruel tricks.)

Anyway, it was a very nice middle school, if I have to send my kid off to the dark and horrible place that middle school holds in the recesses of my recollections. This one is a charter school, and it’s all alternative thinking, and no bells, and random dog in the hallway, and calling teachers by their first names. Sam would probably love it and thrive there, once he got past the initial bump of realizing that he would have to be more of his own boss. Then again, it’s a very competitive lottery, so I’m not getting my hopes up, and I’m trying to discourage him from counting his chickens, too. The orientation for his home middle school is tomorrow night, and maybe it won’t be so bad…maybe all those police calls for fighting are, y’know, exaggerated in the newspaper…(somebody hold me!)

So, say Sam doesn’t make it into the hippie-dippy middle school, and my little free spirit becomes a target for bullies at the home school. There are other options, too. Another charter school, from which I’m waiting to hear back. Maybe the Christian school, though it’s private and expensive. And maybe the home school wouldn’t be so bad, after all; some people are reassuring me that it’s not. Demons always seem to rear their heads more vividly in your rear-view mirror than they do through the windshield. He’ll probably be fine wherever he goes…probably.

Man, do I wish I was sending Gabe with him. :sad: Not wishing Gabe’s life into fast-forward, of course, but if ever there was a brother willing to step up and defend his brother against all comers, it’s that one, bless him. But they won’t be in school together again after this year – unless, of course, they get into one of the charter schools, which are sixth through twelfth grades. Another reason to keep fingers crossed!

Posted in Pictures and movies, Rants and vents, Samuel | 2 Comments

Bon matin (or something)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Carrie

I am surprisingly not hungover this morning. I say “surprisingly” because the Orange Bowl was last night, and my beloved Mountaineers were up against Clemson, and I got this great idea from a sign outside a local restaurant that we would do touchdown shots when West Virginia scored. (One part Jäger, three parts Rumchata. You’re welcome.) Well, how was I supposed to know that the Mounties would choose last night to go absolutely nuts on the other team? As Eric put it, “It’s like they tried to have an Orange Bowl, and a basketball score broke out.” I got some foreshadowing when one of our guys was all, “Oh, hey, I’ll just take your fumble and RUN 99 YARDS TO SCORE.” Yeah, it was that kind of game. Final score, 70-33. We kicked the bottle of Rumchata before the fourth quarter even began.

But the only thing sore this morning are my calves, which is completely unfair. I broke out my Newton running shoes again yesterday for another try at adjusting my form (I got them in June but quickly decided I didn’t have time to deal with a slow adjustment period before gearing up for JFK), and I did exactly what was suggested in Natural Running, right down to only a “slow, ten-minute jog to warm up.” Well, ouch. Darn it.

Side note: I did the workout in my “prison gym,” which is the dismal, run-down basement of the Y where they keep the indoor track. I wanted to jump rope and do the form drills, so it seemed the best place, but it was hilariously awful; I half expected to hear wardens yelling at inmates around me. Also, when’s the last time you jumped rope? I hadn’t since perhaps middle school, so that, too, was hysterical. I think I made it up to 45 jumps once before my wrists and feet got off-track from each other. Perhaps that lack of coordination, plus the balance problems revealed sharply as I was doing the form drills, explain why I fall down so much? :roll:

Anyway, going to be a slow run today, and in my regular shoes. Baby steps, y’all. On the plus side, my shoulder feels much better; I think I’m almost getting to the point where I could consider swimming again! Not now, but maybe in another week or two…

Posted in Completely random, Fitness and Health | 3 Comments

Race Report: Run Into the New Year 5K (Or “It’s the End of the Year As We Know It”)

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Carrie

Unexpected, this, to place in my age group after a year of basically running longer-longer-longer and pretending that things like speedwork and track time didn’t exist. Of course, it helps when the race gives medals ten places deep in each age group, which is practically unheard of, but still. After no speed training for more than a year, and minimal running for the past six weeks on a bruised knee and with a bum shoulder, I logically should have been midpack at best. Guess the legs remembered a little of what they used to do.

Not much to talk about with a 5K; it’s over too fast for a lengthy report. The sun shone, it was chilly but not cold, and everybody was…5K-ish. I told a friend who was there that I think I prefer the low-key “non-energy” before an ultra; no point warming up or doing striders and skipping if you’re going to be running all day. The corral was crowded, full of folks who were Super Serious and those who looked like first-timers. Nobody seemed to have any inclination toward lining up according to how fast you expect to run; I saw plenty of folks near the front who were obviously not interested in trying to hold the pace the people near them were going to be doing. (Quickly scootched out from behind the pack of girls I initially took to be fast, but who began making giggly plans to run holding hands and jumping together. Yeah.)

Within thirty seconds of starting to run, I took an elbow to my sore shoulder from the very tall man running beside me. Ow.

But once I got out of the traditional 5K mosh pit, it was pretty much smooth sailing until the end. Honestly, I could have pushed harder, but, well, I’ve spend a long time now learning to push my endurance and not really having to visit the particular Pain Cave involved with running fast. That’s a different sort of willpower, and I’m out of practice.

Finished in 25:38, which is nowhere near my PR, but which is pretty good compared to what I’ve been running lately. It was even good enough, as I said, for tenth place in my age group. What it mostly is, though, is a benchmark. That Pain Cave I mentioned a paragraph ago? I’m going to be going there in 2012. This will be the year I regain my speed (relative though it is), with plenty of shorter races and such to test myself. I hope to round out the year with a very nice half-marathon. It’s not a “vacation year”; it’s a year of changing the focus. Long is good, but you can be lazy while going long. Sometimes, I hope, it pays to rev the motor a bit, even if you’re more of a long-range trucker than a sports car. ;)

So. Here’s to the end of 2011, which had plenty of ups and downs for my running. Lots of injuries, but lots of milestones, too. I gave up my toenails, and I gained insight into gratitude for the miles. I got to learn about pool running when I was hurt, but I also learned to love swimming as a cross-training tool. I ran 5Ks and ultras, and they both taught me things I needed to know.

Tomorrow? I’m going for a run with my running club. Hope you’ll be out there, too. :mrgreen:

Posted in Fitness and Health, Pictures and movies, Race reports | 1 Comment

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Carrie

RANDOM PUBLIC SERVICE TV AD: “Hi, I’m Tiffany…”
GABE: “Where do you live?”
ME: “Gabe? Did you just ask that person where they live?”
GABE: “Yep.”
ME: “Okay. Why?”
GABE: “No reason.”
ME: “Seriously?”
GABE: “It just looked weird. I think they live in Denver.”

Sometimes, I just don’t know, and exploring deeper seems like a bad idea.

I have a race tomorrow morning, which completely just registered in my brain as something that’s happening. Just a 5K, but still. Like, “Holy crap, I have to go pin on a number.” Not looking to PR, with my knee still playing games with me (bone bruises are a pain, literally and figuratively), but it’s still a fun way to end the year.

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Mid-holiday sag

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Carrie

Between Christmas and New Year’s, here, we’re having a bit of a sag in atmosphere. Oh, sure, the toys are cool, and we’re thrilled to have Eric home to spend time with us, but now Gabe has another ear infection, and Eric’s feeling icky from a sinus something-or-other, and we’re all starting to think about a return to routine, I think.

On the other hand, we did get to that basketball camp, and Gabe is in love. Love, love, love. He’s decided that he wants to be on a basketball team NOW, and since we grabbed a basketball from the toy store when we were out spending Christmas gift cards, he’s been dribbling it all over the house, demonstrating his Mad Skillz, yo. I mean, he’s still very much a seven-year-old beginner, but as far as he’s concerned, he’s Michael Jordan. (Sam participated and had fun, but he wasn’t as taken by the sport as his brother. He wanted to get back home and wire things. I kid you not, yesterday he and Eric built a freaking theremin with his electricity set.)

But then Gabe’s ear started throbbing, and he burst into a monster fever last night as he wailed, so we took him into our bed and cuddled him throughout the night until we could get him seen by our wonderful doctor this morning. He feels much better now, thankfully, and the doctor gave him her blessing to attend basketball camp tonight if he’s feeling well (he’s not coughing or sneezing, thankfully), so he’s happy. Hopefully, tonight will go better than last night; nighttime is always the hardest for him.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

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Boxing Day

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Carrie

Low-key sort of day. Goose is in the oven – yes, it should have been for Christmas, but when I started to prep it yesterday, one of the initial instructions said to “scald and dry it,” which involved a 24-hour rest period afterward – and quite a lot of Eric’s prized “schmaltz” has already been collected from it. The kids spent a good amount of time destroying various things on their video games this morning, and now they’ve switched over to build mode, having unboxed their electrical sets. (I’ve teased them that when they get all that figured out, they can repair the poorly wired light switch in the upstairs hallway.) Amazing; I don’t understand a lick of it, beyond “must go in a complete circle.” Gabe knows more than I do at this point.

I wanted to get to the gym today, but I’m waiting on a call back about a program happening there for kids later this afternoon; if there’s space available for the kids, I’ll just go work out then. Hope there is. These holidays result in a sudden decrease in regularly scheduled and enforced large-motor-skill time that aggression builds up pretty quickly. I’ve taken to sending them out for runs around the block when they start going for each others’ throats. (Gabe, naturally, has embraced this idea; Sam has a horror of it.) Another session might be approaching soon, from what I’m now overhearing. Maybe I can con convince Sam to take another try on his Ripstik; he was frustrated yesterday by being unable to hop right on and ride, so he decided it was “too cold” and came in after a few minutes.

Goose is done. Smells awesome…

Posted in Completely random, Familial things, Pictures and movies | 2 Comments