Lousy Smarch Weather

The residents of Denver woke up this morning, YES THIS (May 11) morning to SNOW. I know it’s not a lot. I know it didn’t stick to streets, but I had to scrape off my car and put the kids in real shoes with socks and jackets. To say it dampened my mood is a gigantic understatement.

However, it did COMPLETELY justify my procrastination vis-a-vis our garden. Yay! I think I may supplement my usual minty green tea with some hot chocolate this morning. One excellent thing to come out of this cold snap though … excellent race day conditions for Sunday!! I could certainly do without a repeat of last week.

Our Little Ski Bum

My poor hubby. His birthday is jammed in with Mother’s Day. And it’s not that anyone thinks Mother’s Day is necessarily any more important than his b’day, it’s just that there’s a LOT of mothers between my mom, myself and our extended family and friends. It’s a numbers thing. So frequently his b’day kind of gets the short end of the stick. And his b’day is also in pretty close proximity with Ben’s which means two years ago I was exhausted from having just had a baby (and a bunch of relatives in from out-of-town for my brother-in-law’s graduation) and last year we were doing the first birthday thing. So like I said, not much birthday love for Matt. But this year, I swear I redeemed myself. I DID!!

Last summer at the Vail Farmer’s Market, we saw an awesome artist, Sara Melzer. She does gorgeous India ink portraits of ski bums! They’re super colorful and kind of wild and splashy and Matt and I both loved them. We thought at the time about commissioning her to do a portrait from one of our favorite photos of Tabby in her ski gear but we couldn’t really swing or justify the price at the time. So I filed it away in my brain.

This past winter, seeing Matt skiing with his baby girl I knew I had to have the portrait made for him. He just loves sharing his favorite sport with her and takes such pride in her enjoyment and emerging proficiency. So this March I emailed Sara about getting it going and she was wonderful to work with. I sent a few photos, including this one, my fave and she agreed, that was the one. So she took a couple of weeks, worked up a proof and emailed it to me. I was thrilled!! Since Vail is a couple of hours away, I could either have it mailed to me or pick it up … shipping was steepish so I bribed my awesome cousin and his girlfriend with Indian food and he picked it up for me when he was in Vail over spring break.

I made a few slip-ups and I was scared to death he’d figure it out before the big day, but he didn’t! He was totally surprised and he LOVES it. We don’t know where we’ll hang it just yet. But we do know we’ll need a second one featuring Ben … now I just have to find the perfect ski suit.

Happy Birthday to My Hubby!!

It is so hard to believe that when I met my husband he was a mere 18 years old. Wow. Is that possible? Let me do the math real quick … YES. He was 18 years old and it was our first semester of college. Today he turns 31.

Everything I loved about him from the beginning: his incredible energy and enthusiasm for life, his keen intellect, and his oh-so-caring nature is all still there. And 12 years has brought even more to love. He gets major props for being a great husband and father. He is my true partner, involved in almost every aspect of our life together from housework to home improvement to projects to leisure activities. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more involved father; he truly knows our kids and loves to be with them.

Happy birthday, Matty! Thanks so much for all you are and all you do.

Paint Chip Placemats

[flickr size=”small” float=”right”]5687169316[/flickr]For the kids’ party I made placemats as party-favors for the guests. Basically I just printed large graphics with the kids’ names on them and laminated them. The laminating sheets came in a box of 100 so I’ve got a few to spare. Somewhere in my travels, I saw mention of “paint chip” placemats and I tucked the idea away in the cobwebby part of my brain. Then with 60+ laminating pouches at my disposal, the idea surfaced again.

So I fired up photoshop and divided off a 11×17″ (300 dpi) set of pixels into 4 rectangles with these white borders (100 pixel width).  Then I filled in the rectangles with the various shades and added text layers for the colors’ names and a phony-baloney paint code below. I bought a few sheets worth of printing from our office color printer and brought them into corporeal being. A trip through the laminator and voila! Placemats!

They look very pretty on our incredibly scarred and scratched IKEA table (now in its 9th year of existence). Tabby always wants the purple one and tries to match/compliment the napkins with the placemats.

This Time of Year

This is the time of year when I’m exhausted just looking at our calendar. From Ben’s birthday (end of April) to my sister’s (early July) we are just slammed! Holidays, weddings, birthdays, graduations, travel and RACES.

We’ve been so go-go-go that I really feel like I’ve lost my groove. For weeks and weeks I was super good about getting my butt to the gym and avoiding crap food. But the past week has been a freaking train-wreck. I’ve had pain in my foot and I’ve been a bit less active because of that, but I’ve also been doing some dumb dumb things like playing Sims 3 and staying up too late and then skipping my workout in the AM. The fact that I haven’t missed a training run is a miracle.

And the food. Really, we shouldn’t talk about it. It is terrible. I had pizza on Friday, Thai food (curry made with coconut milk) on Saturday, a giant burger on Sunday and then fried nastiness from the movie theatre last night – a grilled cheese sandwich and some cinnamon rolls. The grease stains the kids left on my pants can attest to how bad that stuff was for us. On top of that, I feel terrible when I eat that way more than once a week. Emotionally I’m guilty and mad for eating that junk and physiologically I have way less energy and my GI is not a happy camper either.

And let’s not talk about the house. I can feel my blood pressure rise just thinking about it. There is junk EVERYWHERE. The kids’ kitchen stool is out in the yard still because Ben threw up on it last week and we took it out there to wash and it hasn’t come back in yet. Laundry is in baskets (mostly folded at least) all over the place. We have mystery EVERYTHING in the fridge. There are random bags that we’ve taken all over creation and still not unpacked so I know where virtually nothing is.

But enough bitching and moaning. I need plan. A plan of attack. So here it is.

  • No computer games unless it’s the weekend and the house doesn’t look like a disaster zone.
  • Spend 10 minutes before bed each evening returning things to their proper places.
  • Continue making and executing meal plans … but nothing new, nothing fancy. Just get it done.
  • No more slacking on the training. Every Damn Day (except possibly Saturday). Just Do It.
  • JUST SAY NO. No more stuff. No more dates filling up on our calendar with anything except the best. No more Ms. Nice Girl.

This Thursday I am taking the day off work. I get to go see Tabby in her school program and then I get some blissful hours of mental health time. I will be using at least part of that to veg with a book or have a nap but I know I will use a bit of it at least to work on getting my life in order. Order means I can read to and play with the kids, hang with Matt and do other things for myself without distractions. Order is good.

Weekend To Do(ne) List

Well a few things remain, but mostly it was a successful and good weekend!

  • host playdate with T’s friend from preschool (friend got sick and could not come. T was hugely bummed out)
  • first screening (for the kids) of Sound of Music, complete with M ‘n’ Ms and popcorn
  • homemade pizza night with family
  • FIRST workout 2.2 (5 miles faster than race pace)
  • go to yoga b/c it’s important to my long-term fitness even though (let’s not lie) I find it very boring
  • catch up on Big Bang Theory and Bones
  • send the kids off for a sleepover at Grammy & Papas
  • clothes shopping  because none of my clothes fit (I bought exactly ONE thing)
  • grocery shopping
  • clean up the flower beds and get them ready to plant
  • go out for Thai with my hubby (at the restaurant where my cuz works)
  • stay up way too late on Sat night
  • sleep in on Sunday
  • long run with the gang (FIRST 2.3)
  • pick up my darling kiddos from Grammy & Papa’s
  • yummy bad-for-me burgery lunch (with sweet potato fries)
  • park time with our good friends
  • take some photos of the kids
  • put away laundry (mostly done)
  • clean the house
  • have dinner and basement finishing planning session with friends
  • clean up mess dog left when he went on an “chew plastic” rampage in our absence
  • send loads of emails
  • relax and play some video games