Memorial Day Weekend

This weekend was J's opportunity to relax. He did many of the things he loves:

Burning things (crazy pyro husband!),


playing his guitar outside with the amplifier cranked up, and grilling.

S spent a lot of time in the tree being"half human, half howler monkey. The human half is half Korean, half American, and the monkey half is half capuchin monkey (Thanks for that, "Night at the Museum") and half howler monkey." Whatever he was, he was very loud!

Then to occupy S and O we turned on the sprinkers and J and the boys ran through a couple of times. Actually, it was more like J running through and S and O shivering and watching. Good times.

I began and ended Saturday with a 30-min run. It's been so long since I've used the treadmill; I had forgotten how much I love/hate that thing! Monday I ran 4.5 miles and today I got up at 5 to run 7. Right now I can't feel my left ankle. I think it's defecting from my body and taking my foot with it. Poor thing -- it's feeling abused. When should I break it to my flat left foot that we're running 2 hours on Saturday, that the Ragnar is 3 weeks away, and that on the Fourth of July I'm running the Freedom 10K? It just might want to divorce me. Maybe we need couseling in the form of a podiatrist. I'll call tomorrow.

It was a great long weekend; when's the next one?

Material Girl

If you know me at all, you will know that I am not a wanter of things. It's true that I have a weakness for books, but other than that, there are not a lot of things I could say I want to have. It's evidenced by the way I dress (jeans and a t-shirt, anyone?), by the way my house is decorated (maybe 3 pictures hung up in the entire house and two clocks. no cutesy decorative stuff -- it would just get destroyed by monkeys 1,2, and 3), and by the scraggly appearance of my house and yard.

J's not really into too much stuff either, but when he gets in his head that he wants something, watch out! I get an anxious little knot in my stomach when he comes to me with that glint in his eye and says,"I bought something." He doesn't do anything small. He also is terrific at spoiling me. It all evens out since I have a hard time buying anything for myself.

For our running endeavors, he bought himself a Garmin with a heart rate monitor and GPS. I started running more and more consistently, so he decided I needed one. He gave me his old one and bought himself another one with the heart rate monitor and GPS. It's a lot more than I use and need, but it is kind of fun to see where I've been and how slow I truly am. When I made the commitment to run the Ragnar, I vacillated on the treadmill. They're huge, heavy, and they just stare at you when you're not using them, telling you that you will pay for that cookie in your hand later on. I mentioned it to J, knowing that there is great power in suggestion, and this is what he came up with:



The Nordic Track Elite 7500. It arrived on Tuesday. We had to have our neighbor come help us carry it up one flight of stairs and down two. He stayed to help us set it up, which was a blessing, because J is not allowed to lift anything too heavy, but was too eager to set it up and get it going. (Thanks, Jer!) When J told me that he bought a treadmill, he added that I would be proud of him because he didn't buy the fanciest, most expensive model -- he went four steps down from that. When we set it up I thought that while it wasn't the fanciest model, it sure was fancy -- too much for me. I just needed it to move and incline -- that's it. Later on, after the kids were in bed we met at the treadmill to check out all the features. When J hooked up the DVD player and put in Ocean's Eleven (the new one) and I got going on it, I fell in love. So glad that man spoils me. Of course, when I ran on Wednesday for 40 min on a 4% incline, I didn't love it so much. Overall, though, the treadmill is one thing I'm really glad to have.