If I NEVER see another paint roller again, it will be too soon.

Four one-gallon cans of paint? Check.

470 square foot of new carpet? Check.

3 new curtain rods? Check.

New window treatments for two long windows, one bay window, one sliding glass door, and one kitchen window? Check.

New lighting fixtures for kitchen, stairway, dining room, laundry room, and main entry? Check.

New refrigerator ordered and on its way? Check.

Four rooms on main floor remodeled?

Flipping CHECK.

This weekend has been a frenzy of moving furniture, dripping paint, lost screws, sticky painters tape and minor fears of electrocution.

(Don't worry. We cut the power to the entire house rather than risk it.)

The kids have been systematically banned from one room after another, and spent a fair amount of time watching movies or playing in the secret agent room in the basement.

Poor Canada has barely been allowed to roam the house for fear of getting dog hair trappings in the wet paint.

BUT. It's mostly over now, save for some minor finishing touches.

And me trying to get all the paint speckles out of my hair.

At least this time, I didn't need a head lamp.

This past weekend, I completed my "big" run of the year, a 10-mile trail run at Winona Lake Trails. It solidified one thing for me.

I LOVE trail running.

This was my second-ever trail run and I gotta say, I'm kinda hooked on it. I've spent the last few days Googling trail races and trail running websites and trying to figure out what Ben's reaction would be if I told him I planned to travel the country and hit random trail races every other weekend or so.

This course was a challenging one, and by challenging I mean barely-one-foot-wide-single-track-winding-through-the-woods-with-steep-ascents-and-descents-and-I-mean-STEEP-as-in-I-am-having-to-grab-onto-this-here-tree-trunk-as-I'm-climbing-this-hill-to-keep-myself-from-sliding-back-down-it.


It was FABULOUS.

My time was decent, I'm not a super-star by any means, but my goal was to finish in under 1:50; I made it in 1:43:43.

I think I can honestly say I would not have enjoyed a straight 10-mile run nearly as much. There's just something about trail running that energizes me so much more.

The problem is, trail runners tend to be....how can I say it....NUTS.

The two trail runs I have done have both had multiple races, so you can choose between a) long, b) really long, or c) you are clearly certifiably insane.

Like my first race, a quarter marathon (6.55 miles); the other two choices were a half-marathon or full marathon.

This race, I ran the 10-mile loop. You could also sign up for a 30-mile or 50-mile race.

Yes, you read that right. FIFTY miles. Through the woods. It took one person 14 hours to complete this. I can't even SLEEP for fourteen hours straight very well.

I'm really not interested in marathoning, certainly not ultra-marathoning, and I'm pretty hesitant to even try another half-marathon. I did pretty okay on this 10 miles, so another 10- or 13-mile race might be doable, but that's really not my passion. I adored the quarter-marathon race, that distance is PERFECT for me, but it's a lot harder to find trail races that are that short of a distance.

At any rate, up next for me is the sprint triathlon next month. 500-yard swim, 11-mile bike, 3.1-mile run. This is my first ever triathlon, it's one of those things on my list that I've always wanted to do, so I'm pretty pumped about crossing this one off.

(As an aside, I found a nearby triathlon including trail run that is scheduled for August. If my first tri goes well, you can count on me signing up for that one.)

Me, crossing the finish. (I'm the one in the blue.) 

 Me and Tammy, post-race. Tammy clearly taking advantage of the post-race goodies.

Tammy and her husband, Dave.

We've created a monster.

I've mentioned in the past that we use marble jars as a form of reinforcement for the kids. Good behavior = marbles earned, poor behavior = marbles lost.  Earn a certain number of marbles, they earn the right to buy a toy. The first time, they had to earn 25 marbles, then 30, then 35, and so on.

The boys have lately become obsessed with the Skylanders video game on the Xbox. They like the game well enough, but they also actually like just playing with the characters as little action figures (since the game consist of actual figurines that you place on the "portal" so they can come to life in the video game). They also like reading about the Skylanders and their various powers and histories in their Skylander book.

At any rate, because of this newfound obsession, the boys have been saving their earned marbles up in order to purchase new Skylander characters.

Okay, put the Skylander/marble topic aside for just a moment, and let's talk about Travis's timed math work at school. He's a whiz at math, but has a hard time focusing well enough to buckle down and get the timed work done in time. His teacher has been sending it home for him to finish.

I've been timing him, and pushing him to get 3 rows done in 1 minute. He's come close one time, but keeps getting distracted and hasn't yet met this goal.

Tonight, I told him that if he accomplished this goal of 3 rows in 1 minute, I would award him with a marble.

Mom, what if I got 3 rows done in 30 seconds?


Well, that would be amazing and I would give you 5 marbles.


What if I got.....um....what's one-half of 30? Oh wait, I know. What if I got 3 rows done in 15 seconds?


Well, then you are a super-amazing genius and I would give you...uh...50 marbles!


That would mean I have 82 marbles!!


Yep, that's right. [Needless to say, he currently has 32 marbles.]

So.....[thinking]....what is 12 minus 5? Um....7, right? So that would mean that if I got both Stump Smash and Drobot, I would have 7 marbles left.


At this point, I was lost. I wasn't sure what he was trying to calculate, I didn't know why he asked what 12 minus 5 was, and I had no idea what he meant. I know that Stump Smash and Drobot are both Skylander characters that he wants, but beyond that his statement was meaningless to me.

I asked him to clarify.

He explained.

If he were to somehow earn those 82 marbles, used 35 for Stump Smash, used 40 for Drobot, he would have 7 marbles left.

I actually had to pause, re-do the math in my head, and confirm he was right.

It took me longer to confirm it in my head than it had taken him to make this deduction.

I'm still not entirely sure why he needed to know what 12 minus 5 was, the only thing I can think of is that he first calculated if each toy were worth 35 marbles, thus 35+35=70, and then the difference between 82 and 70 is 12, and then he knew the 2nd toy would be worth 5 marbles more, so 12-5=7.

Ironic for a kid who is struggling with math at school, eh?

Race-of-the-Month Club

I've been trying to sign up for about one race per month.

If things go as planned, I'll hit all but two months between May of 2011 and October of 2012. And I've got two scheduled for July. So....17 races in 18 months.

Not bad.

This month's race was a 5-miler in Fort Wayne. This race also had an option for a 20K (about 12.4 miles), but I've kind of decided to focus less on the distance runs and more on the adventure-slash-trail races.

I ran with two co-workers, one being a total hard-core ninja who went for the 20K (you're a rock-star Sandy!!), and the other being my regular running partner, Erin.  Erin's not been available for most of the other races I've signed up for, so this was actually her first official race since the days of high school cross country in North Branch, Michigan.

Erin and I are very similar in our running capabilities, and we literally crossed the finish line together. Ben asked if I grabbed her hand and held it overhead while running through the finish-line arch, but unfortunately I hadn't thought of that idea beforehand otherwise I totally would have done it.

I didn't hit my goal of 45:00, but I'm reasonably pleased with my finish time of 46:03.

As a brief aside, Justin and Erin graciously agreed to drive me to the race to allow Ben to take the kids to Angola. Mandy, the aggravatingly annoying voice on Erin's Tom-Tom GPS, has proven herself to be less-than-trustworthy once again, as she led us to a totally off-the-beaten-path, random location that turned out to be fifteen miles beyond where we were actually supposed to be:

Mandy: You have arrived at your destination.
Justin: .....uh.....I have? This looks like someone's house. 

But, we made it to the race on time, it was a perfect day for a run, and Justin got to witness what he described as a totally-awesome vomit story, of which I shall spare you the details. Rest assured that neither Erin nor myself were actually a part of it, so I consider that a WIN.

Next month: 10-mile trail run in Winona Lake.

On eating grass, and other life lessons

Noah was playing with a "magic wand" craft that he made last weekend at a birthday party for one of his classmates.

It has swirly ribbon hanging from the end of it.

He gets really upset when that ribbon gets tangled.

Tonight as he was swinging his wand around, Travis stuck his hand out, directly into the path of the swirly ribbon, and got said ribbon all tangled up.

Noah said, "Travis messed up my wand!!"


Travis: "No I didn't! You're just trying to get me in trouble!"


Noah: "No I'm not! You did too mess it up!"


This went on for a few minutes, back and forth, no-I-didn't-yes-you-did, then Noah turned to me and said, "Who is telling the truth?"


Seriously? I couldn't possibly get a better after-school-special-lesson opportunity if one was served to me on a silver platter.

I said, "It's time for a little lesson on perspective."

I grabbed a blade of grass from the back yard, and asked them to tell me how an ant would describe that blade of grass.

"It's a giant green thing!"
"It would take me nineteen minutes to walk across it!"
"It's really heavy!"


Then I asked them to tell me how an elephant would describe it.

"It's a tiny green thing!"
"I can barely see it!"
"I can squash it in one step!"


Then I said, "Okay, who is telling the truth? The ant, or the elephant?"

----

Silence.

Noah said, "......me?" (That kid's always trying to win an argument.)

I explained that they both are telling the truth, it's just that they have wildly different perspectives.

We went on:

Let's use a different example. If I put a piece of pizza in front of Sophie, she would say, "Yum!! Pizza! I LOVE pizza!!" But if I put that same piece of pizza in front of Travis, he would say, "Pizza doesn't taste good. No thank you." Who is telling the truth?


"They both are!"


That's right, they both are telling the truth, they just have different perspectives.


So we talked a little about how you can disagree with someone because they are seeing something from a different perspective, but it doesn't make that person wrong. And that the sooner they are able to understand someone else's perspective, the easier they will find it to get along with people.

Sophie tried to learn this lesson, too, but she didn't get it so much. She was more enthralled with the fact that we brought a blade of grass in from outside. She interjected, "If you put a blade of grass in front of me, I would say, "YUM! I love grass!"


Yup, sounds about right.

It's always SOMEthing.

A couple weeks ago, I pulled something in my neck while doing overhead presses, one of five lifts that I do in my new weight lifting program.

My neck muscles were stiff and tight afterwards. I decided to take a week off of lifting, and even took a break from running because I noticed that even a run made it stiffen up more.

So last week, no workouts. Not a one.

It was nice, I'd been going pretty hard-core for quite a while, and I think it was time for a break. I enjoyed it. But I also looked forward to getting back to it. I've really come to love weight lifting and find that I miss it during a break like this one.

I decided that today, Sunday, I'd do another run, and then get back to my weight lifting routine on Monday.

But? I've done something awful to my shoulder.

This shoulder always pops a lot, but rarely hurts. Now, I can't pick up a bowl of animal crackers without gasping in pain.

I don't know what on earth I did to it. It doesn't feel like I slept on it wrong. It doesn't feel like sore muscles. It feels like my shoulder joint is tearing apart.

I'm frustrated and sad, because I've called off my run for today since I really need to keep my shoulder immobile, and I'm probably not going to be able to do my weight lifting tomorrow. As I mentioned, there are only five lifts involved, and I can't do four of them with this shoulder pain.

This week off was supposed to be good for me, and I can't believe I've ended it by somehow hurting myself in some random way enough that I can't resume my workouts like I'd planned.

Bollocks.

Personal Best

Today at the gym, some guy stopped me and said, "You've really trimmed down a lot. How much have you lost?"

So I told him -- I've lost over 30 pounds in about 6 months. He congratulated me and asked me a bit about what I had been doing. He knows I run and lift weights -- I see him 3 or 4 times a week at the gym because our workout schedules are fairly similar -- and I told him that I'd been logging my food and generally eating around 1800 calories a day.

It's a little bit hard for me to come to grips with my new skinny body. I feel an odd mix of vain pride and  stupid self-consciousness in most social situations. I can't even figure out if I'm actually slim or if I just think I am because I'm not as fat as I used to be. I've always had a very difficult time evaluating what my body *actually* looks like versus some ridiculous picture in my head.

But the truth is, I've mostly decided I don't care anymore.

I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm not looking to have a rockin' bikini bod. (That's not likely to happen, anyway.) I'm happily married and am not looking to get a lot of male attention - I've never been one to like being the center of attention anyway. My self-worth is NOT tied to my dress size. (Most days, anyway.)

What I do care about:

Doing jumping jacks in the kitchen with Sophie while we're waiting for dinner to cook (and she says, "mom, we're EXERCISING!").



Finding out exactly what my body is capable of (like knocking out three unassisted chin-ups, or deadlifting my bodyweight, or getting a new personal best in that 5k race).

Talking openly with my kids about what it means to be healthy and how and why we should make healthy choices more often than not. But more important than talking about it -- actually living it -- a balanced, 'everything-in-moderation' lifestyle where they learn some basic healthy attitudes without it being an obsession.

And, most importantly, teaching my kids about respecting all people, including themselves, regardless of outward appearance. This was a big deal for me as I started losing weight because I didn't want my kids -- especially my daughter -- to pick up on the idea that I wasn't as valuable as a person because I was overweight. I've told my kids that I'm working on being healthier because it is easier on my body, my joints, my heart, when I'm a lighter weight. And that I'm working on being stronger because it makes me able to do more fun stuff, more work stuff, more 'stuff' in general. And that there are all different kinds of people in the world and they are all working on different things about themselves, and that we never know where a person might be in their lives or what's most important to them at that moment, so it is not useful to judge someone just because we think there is something they could improve on. We could all improve on something.

As an aside, I am madly in love with my weight-lifting routine, which is super-simple in concept -- only 5 different lifts in total -- but an awesomely-tough actual workout. I actually get a silly enjoyment of being one of very few women in the free-weight section of the gym, and the only one I've ever seen squatting in the power rack. I feel stronger and healthier than I have in a long time, and I love it.

And, watching Sophie do her 'push-ups' before bedtime is enough to put a smile on anyone's face.

Not creepy at all

The other day, I got into the parking garage elevator after a long day of work. It was a Friday afternoon, and it had been somewhat of a draining week, so I was kind of mindlessly going through the motions of getting out to my car, and not paying much attention to my surroundings.

I got on the elevator, and stared out the large glass wall on the back edge. The elevator door shut.

At the last second, some guy stuck his arm in the path of the elevator door, the door opened back up, and he got on the elevator.

He could apparently tell that I wasn't paying much attention, because he started apologizing for startling me before I actually even registered a startle.

But I did jump, spun around, and he said, "sorry, sorry, just trying to catch the elevator!"

I relaxed, nodded at him, and he pressed the button and the door closed.

As we're riding up, he laughed and said, "You should see the people at 5:30 in the morning, when they don't think there is anyone else in the parking garage, and then I get on the elevator, boy are they surprised."

I politely laughed, mumbled something like, "oh I bet," and then we were on my floor so I got out and went to my car.

Then I started thinking, did he really just tell me a story about his other 'scaring-people-by-stealing-into-the-elevator-at-the-last-second' experiences? Does this guy regularly make it a point to swipe elevators as the doors are closing? How is it that he actually has a wealth of elevator-swiping stories upon which to draw in this situation?

Weird.

Like a Record, Baby

We were having a particularly temperamental evening, with the kids acting a bit cranky at bedtime. So, to lighten the mood, I told each of them they had to come up with a silly way to go upstairs. They could crawl, they could skip, they could hop on one foot, but it had to be silly.

Travis chose jumping.

Sophie chose marching.

Noah chose being carried.

I told him that wasn't really silly enough. Try again, Noah.

I want you to carry me.

How about.....walking backwards?

mmmmm....nope.

How about on your knees?

Please will you carry me?

How about....spinning?

What if you carry me and we both spin?

I gave in. I'm a sucker. I picked him up and we both spun our way up the stairs to brush his teeth. He giggled uncontrollably the entire time, and I nearly passed out from dizziness at the top of the stairs.

In retrospect, not such a brilliant idea.

But, crankiness.....GONE. In it's place, a bunch of marching, jumping, spinning goofballs.

Now that's mushy

Yeah....I'm not a particularly gushy mom, but I don't have a heart of STONE.

So I have to do a little bit of mommy-vomiting today, and by that I mean the sugary, overly sweet, ohmigosh-my-kids-are-so-awesome-and-can-you-believe-what-they-did-and-doesn't-it-just-make-you-want-to-cry anecdotes that I generally try to avoid because it's just NOT MY THING.

But, today? It's my thing.

Dear Mom, 

If I could 

choose 

who 

my Mom was, 

I would choose 

you.

Love,

Travis

This, on a little scrap of paper cut with fancy craft scissors into the shape of a heart. He got done with his art project early at school, and decided to write me a note.

Gulp.

By the light of a dying firefly

I ran my first ever trail race this weekend, 6.55 miles. It was a night race, which was interesting, mostly because I had not tested my head lamp ahead of time, and either it was just not powerful enough, or its batteries were running low, because by mile 4 I was barely able to see a foot in front of me.

And this was a TRAIL in every sense of the word, meaning it wasn't just some flat grassy path, it was a narrow, root-and-rock-laden trail with fallen logs and huge muddy-swampy areas. There were some wooden stairs and a couple bridges that had to be crossed, and doing that all in the dark of night with a faint orange glow that only serves to let you know that there is not a gigantic tree or rock wall on your very next step rather than to actually light your way was....well, an experience.

Truthfully? I loved it.

Once it was over.

During, I mostly just hoped I didn't fall down, and tried to stay reasonably close to packs of people with real head lamps.

Results:
87th of 230 racers
13th of 54 in my age group (F 30-39)
Time of 1:14:21.7


In my training, I ran 6 miles a couple of times, each in about 58 minutes. I ran a 7-miler once, in the bitter cold, and clocked my 6.55 time as 1:04:40, running along the Riverwalk bike path near my house. I was kind of hoping to beat that time, but once I started on the trail I realized what a joke that was, seeing as how I was leaping over logs every 500 foot, and the last mile of this race was so awfully muddy that I slowed to a trot just to keep my shoes from getting sucked off my feet.

My good bud Heather was sucker enough to run this race with me, here we are before realizing what we'd gotten ourselves into. I know, my head lamp is certainly stylish, but that's where its valuable qualities end. Unless maybe someone was trying to use it to pass off as a dying firefly or something.

After the race, we headed back to Heather's house for shower and pizza, and to meet up with some friends to check out the Super Bowl Village in downtown Indy. I felt surprisingly refreshed considering my day, and managed to stay out on the town until about 1:30 a.m.

The gals: Me, Michele, Heather, Ashley

We finished off the festivities with a steak burrito from La Bamba's, which everyone knows is the mark of a truly fantastic night.

I'm allergic to marriage.

Oh, hello, blog world. It's me. I suppose I've been neglecting you. Let me make it up to you by telling you a story.

Two nights ago, I woke up multiple times, uncomfortable and panicked about my wedding ring.

Well, actually, my ring finger.

It was sore, and painful. It was the middle of the night though, so I wasn't coherent enough to do anything about it other than twist my ring around and aggravate it a bit before falling back asleep.

In the morning, I woke up and realized my ring finger was red and swollen. I tried to slip my ring off.

Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

My poor finger was so irritated and swollen, there was just no way I was gonna get this ring off. My ring is normally just exactly the right size, a teensy bit of give so that it's not uncomfortable but not enough to spin around freely. In cold weather, it tends to spin a bit as my blood vessels constrict.

But swollen finger + just-right-sized wedding ring do not mix. The thing wouldn't come off.

I kind of hoped my drive into work would do the trick to get my hands cold enough that the swelling would go down and I could slip the sucker off. Unfortunately, it was an unseasonably warm morning, and although I purposefully tossed my gloves aside and didn't turn the heat on in the car, my finger stayed angry and swollen.

I got to work, and started to get a little panicky, envisioning me having to call the fire department to cut my ring off my finger (do you call the fire dept for that sort of thing? In my head it made sense but now that seems utterly ridiculous). I Googled some ideas (everyone knows Google is the foremost authority on everything in the universe, I always say if you can't find it on Google, it's NOT WORTH KNOWING) and grabbed the jar of lotion I keep at my desk and applied it liberally to my left hand.

Actually, Google told me to try the lotion after soaking my hand in a bucket of ice water for 15 minutes, but I'm a working woman and that seemed way more trouble than I was ready to deal with.

The lotion worked. The ring slipped off.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, then stared in shock at the seeping wound on my ring finger.

Not only was there a band of angry redness where my ring used to be, but there was actually an open sore. It was so inflamed and red that at first glance it still looks like there is a flipping ring on my finger. (A weird, ugly, red ring with a setting of seeping nastiness, sure, but you get my drift.)

I can't figure out why this would have happened. I've worn that ring for 10-and-a-half years and it's never caused me any problems. I haven't changed soaps or cleansers or detergents or anything that might have gotten stuck under my ring and festered. I lift weights 3 times a week, but always wear my lifting gloves, precisely so that I don't have to take my ring off.

I never take my ring off.

Except for in the ninth month of pregnancy, when my hands are swollen and icky. And then I spend the whole last month and a half thinking I look like some kind of unwed tramp and assuming everyone I come in contact with that doesn't know me is all judging me in my unmarried, super-pregnant state.

Sometimes I get a little paranoid.

Anyway, I'm gonna give my finger a few days to recuperate, and then try it again. Hopefully I can make it another ten and a half years before this happens again.

"Nothing, Mom!"

Sophie is very project-oriented.

Unfortunately, the projects she decides to take on generally are in direct opposition with our goals for the household.

Like, how coloring on the walls in the hallway with our new bathtub crayons is, you know, at odds with my goal to keep our walls, well, un-crayoned.

Or how her plan to sneak all the keys off the key holder and hide them in the couch cushions kind of derails our ability to...um...know where our keys are at. Thus making it tough for us to lock things. And unlock them.

Or how her tendency to take all of the half-dollar sized discs from our Connect Four Launcher game and stick them between her toes and walk throughout the house on her heels makes it difficult for us to a) keep track of all those game pieces and b) not fear that our daughter is a total nutjob.

I mean, where does she come up with this???

She's the kind of kid you have to keep a pretty close eye on. Five minute stretches when you haven't heard from her means you're likely to find her in the bathroom squirting cucumber-melon hand soap all over the counter so she could 'clean it'.

She's good about cleaning up her projects, thankfully -- but she hasn't yet mastered the art of distinguishing which activities are appropriate for a three-year-old to engage in, and which are perilously close to getting us a visit from the fire marshal.

The thing is, she's well aware when she's doing something she probably shouldn't.

Like the other day, when I walked out of my bedroom and past the upstairs bathroom, and out of the corner of my eye noticed Sophie leaning over the bathtub, doing something. I didn't know quite what, probably trying to shove quarters down the drain or something, but hadn't even had a chance yet to get a word out of my mouth -- when she heard me behind her, startled, spun around, looked up at me, and declared, "Nothing, Mom!"

This is her standard response lately. When I walk into the kitchen and she's pushing a kitchen chair up to the key hanger on the wall (so that's how she got Ben's server-room key), and I say "Sophie, what do you need that chair for?"

"Nothing, Mom!"

When she's eating her snack at the table and I see her dipping something in her milk (is that her cheese stick? or my iPod?) and I say, "Sophie! Don't put things in your milk! What IS that?"

"Nothing, Mom!"

So, we're gonna have to nip this in the bud somehow. Without stifling her insane creativity and adventerous spirit.

Something tells me she'll be alright.

Party of Five: The Book

Attention faithful followers.... The Party of Five: 2011 book is ready!!

I'm going to be making an order here soon, let me know if you want one and I will add it to my order.

(Last year's book is still available as well, in case you missed it and want one! Click here to see 2011 and here to see 2009/2010.)

Hide and.... well, just hide.

Tonight the kids and I played the best game of hide-and-seek.

My first hiding spot was in the curtain behind the Christmas tree (yep, still haven't taken it down yet, don't judge) in the dining room.

The kids could not find me, so after several minutes of searching, I waited until they were in the kitchen and boomed, "I'M IN THE DINING ROOM!"

They all three raced in the dining room, looked around, and screamed, "No you're not, mom! You're not in here!" and then raced out and kept searching.

They did eventually find me. Then it was Noah's turn to count, and then mine, and finally Sophie's.

Sophie, though, was having too much fun playing the game. She didn't want it to end. So when she found Travis crouched behind the toy box (he said, "I'm not using my best hiding skills because she's still too young,"), she said, "I can't find you!"

Travis, still crouching in his spot, said, "Sophie! Can you see me?"

She stared directly at him, thought for a moment, and said, "Nope. I can't see you anywhere."

Five minutes later, she's still searching.

This could be a long night.