When I got up this morning, our lovely rain from last night had turned to snow.
But NOTHING was going to stop me from wearing these babies on my casual Thursday.
NOTHING.
New Kicks
Working For the Weekend
Every week is BUSY. I just accept it. But this week … we have to build a photo booth.
Yes, you read that right. We are building a photo booth. So after workouts, work, commuting, swim lessons, dinner, errands, cleaning up the kitchen, folding laundry and all the other mundane day-to-day crap, Matt has been (and I will soon be too) heading down to the shop to work on the photo booth. Clearly, we’re insane.
This is one of a few projects and to-do list items for the big birthday bash (or The BBB) this weekend. Last night we ran errands (with four kids in tow) to Toys R Us, Babies R US, Michaels and Wal-Mart. I also still need to figure out food and drink. I predict a large, expensive trip to Costco. And someone’s got to make like 5 dozen cupcakes.
Clearly. We’re insane.
The Garden Starts
For the past few years, we’ve done our garden from seedlings purchased at the nursery. There’s nothing really wrong with doing so – we get a reasonable variety of heirlooms from them – but we have always wanted to try growing our own. This year we finally made it happen. I ordered seeds from Seed Savers at the beginning of March. They came and at first I despaired because getting them started seemed like such an easy yet complicated task. There were so many rules and colors of light and recommendations. But I happened upon a great article that really broke it down for me and I made a trip to Lowes and (all by myself) got everything we needed to do the indoor starts. Matt helpfully followed up with another trip for shelving.
Weekend Victory
Well it was a darn fine weekend if I do say so myself. We packed tons in and I must confess that by 9 PM last night I was about on my last legs. I feel OK this morning but I can’t help but wonder what I’ll feel like this afternoon.
Sunday was our FOURTH half marathon and my best yet (PR). I clocked a time of just over 2:18, 12 minutes better than my performance last October. It was a fun race with a course I enjoyed and the conditions (despite dire predictions) weren’t bad, with the exception of WIND. Nasty wind. It was occasionally at our backs, but mostly it beat us from the side or even head on (usually when heading up hill, I swear!!). I also got a nasty side-stitch around mile 10 that slowed me down some. Still all in all, I clocked some sub 10 splits and felt reasonably good for most of the run. Matt and I ran the whole thing together and it was fun for a change. We actually have the exact same chip time, down to the second.
The after party, as promised, was great. Plenty of good food and fun times hanging out with our training buddies. I also happened upon a friend from grade school and high school and her family. I hadn’t seen her in over 10 years!
There was loads of other fun stuff, including a trip to one of my favorite breakfast spots, Snooze, a fine pre-race dinner and other fun with the kiddos and Matt, but I will save that for another day. Right now I’m still riding my PR high.
Three More Sleeps …
Sunday morning at 9 AM I will be ready and rearing to go for my FOURTH half marathon. I started training late, but I’ve been strong. I will be happy if I can just match my pace from October, 2:30 ish, but I will be elated if I can knock off 5 or (dare to dream) 10 minutes. It might be doable. I’ve had some good training runs.
The forecast looks decent. My body is strong. My sneakers are laced up. I’ve got great people to run with. I’ve got a player full of great music and a new book. Fingers crossed, folks. I’m really looking forward to this race.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
Ben at 23 Months
My forgotten second child sneaked into his 24th month with hardly a nod from me. Seriously, where did March go??? As he quickly approaches two, I have been amazed by his changes. We had our friends’ boys over this past weekend and it was like all of a sudden, he’s one of the kids. He no longer just plays at being one of them, he IS one of them. It’s quite amazing and sudden.
I’ve also noticed a marked improvement in his vocabulary. We have a couple picture/word books that he loves to go through with us or Tabby. He points and says the word or waits for us to supply it. Sometimes he’ll mimic what we say, other times he just files it away only to bring it out again a few days later. Owing to this and that I hadn’t been through the book with him in a couple of weeks and suddenly he’d gone from knowing about 10% of the words to about 40% of them.
Salmon Rice Bowls
When we lived in Nashville, we frequented a little place off of Division St., right near Vanderbilt called Ken’s Sushi. It’s definitely not the fanciest place but it has good pretty cheap eats and my favorite Japanese entree I’ve ever had, Sakegohan. It’s a rice bowl with seaweed and salmon and some sauce. I’ve never seen it anywhere else and so I have only get to have the super yummy salmon bowl when we got back to Nashville and managed to make it to Ken’s.
So when I saw the salmon rice bowl idea featured on Dinner a Love Story, I was more than a little intrigued. So we tried it out – well our own version anyway – and while it isn’t EXACTLY a Sakegohan, it’s darn good – a keeper.
The Weekend o’ Projects
Wow! What a weekend. We are usually quite productive but I must say, even I’m a bit in awe at what we accomplished this weekend. Thursday we found out that our friends needed us to watch their boys from Friday night through mid-day Saturday. They are great kids and play so well with ours we never mind. So Saturday morning, after Breakfast Creme Brulee, we sent the kids down to the playroom and watched them on the video monitor while we went nuts on the kitchen. We cleaned out the pantry (way way overdue) and also dumped out and organized three drawers. In the garage, we cleaned out and organized the garage pantry (i.e. Costco Overflow) and cleaned up the area in front of it to make it easier to access. It was punctuated by interruptions by kids, but we got a LOT accomplished in a relatively small amount of time.
Links I Like
So it’s been a pretty good week. We’re always crazy-busy but we’ve been accomplishing things. I’ve gotten in all of my planned workouts. I’ve cooked dinner EVERY NIGHT (I’m taking tonight off since Matt is out of town and I have to accomplish swim lessons and getting kids to my parents’ house) and with one exception, everything has been tasty. At work my projects are going well and I’ve learned some really cool new things about databases. I definitely appreciate good weeks like this one!!
Anyhow, here’s some fun web things that are making my already excellent week extra excellent:
- hooked up with an AWESOME Erica, an artist on Etsy who created an amazing graphic for me to use for the kids’ birthday party give-aways (personalized placemats, printed and laminated by me) -it’s pretty similar to this one, but with a mermaid. She was awesome to work with and turned things around in like 24 hours! If you have any graphicky things that need done totally check her out.
- Also saw this amazing light fixture while poking around on Etsy … I have no idea where I’d put it, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.
- I had never heard of this before, but given my recent history with cloth napkins, I’d love to try these ombre napkins out. They’re so pretty!
- Something about these newsprint nails just makes me smile.
- The people at Make Magazine share this technique for making a hidden safe in your door.
- If you’re looking for leggings or tights, you’ve got to check out this site … they have tons in practically every color and size (toddler to plus) imaginable.
- How cool would it be to visit some of the abandoned Tube Stations in London as a bar or concert hall? I’m all in.
Recovered Bar Stools
Way back when we were first married and living in Madison, WI, we purchased a set of four bar stools. Being as we had little $$ we got them super cheap – under $10/each from a weird little K Mart style store called Shopko. Our apartment had a breakfast bar and so at first, rather than pony up the cash for a dining table, we at our meals on the stools at the breakfast bar. I’ve always liked them. They’ve got nice simple clean lines.
In our house though we do not have a breakfast bar so we keep two of them in the basement and the other two are in our kitchen as occasional seating. They also get to serve as a landing strip for lots of stuff (bags, laundry baskets, etc.). A year ago or so I noticed that the upholstery was looking pretty bad. Who knows what variety of schmutz had been deposited on them between this and that. Finally I decided to do something about them. The process was pretty simple and I love the results.