Where Does the Time Go?

It is amazing how quickly time passes when you have a kid.  People used to tell me that when I was pregnant and I never really understood it.  Time is a constant, right?  Wrong!  Disagree?  Have a kid then tell me your thoughts on time.

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind of activity.  Here are a few milestones. 

1. First there was Halloween.  B moves too darn fast for my phone camera to keep up.  She enjoyed taking handfulls of candy from strangers.  By the end of the night she had forgotten all about the candy, and we ended up giving it away because we ran out.

I don't care if I can't eat it, getting it is the fun part!

2. Then there was the B's 2 year birthday party.  I don't have any pictures because I was too busy getting everything set up.  This is the only photo I have because I'm lame like that.  I made bumblebee cake pops and the B was desperate for one.  Since having a toddler run around a newly cleaned house with a chocolate covered ball of cake sounded like a bad idea, my mom shoved a chopstick into a lemon and I sharpied on stripes and a face.  B probably would have taken it with her to nap time, but the lemon fell off the chopstick and a lemon with a hole in it is just not as much fun. 

There's something wrong with this "bee"...

Because I'm awesome, I didn't get a photo of the B in the birthday dress I made her.  The party was Winnie the Pooh themed and she fit right in.  I slightly modified the wonderful Peplum Dress tutorial Ana sent me.  This was my first experience with installing a zipper and I loved the result.  I did put it on backwards at first but it was easy to rip off and fix.  Turns out zippers aren't that hard.

One of the B's most favorite birthday gift was this fun tea set from her babysitter.  The teapot makes pouring noises when it is tilted.  I seem to have an ability to ignore it, however it drives Jason crazy when she leaves it tilted on the floor.

Would you like some more tea, it will drive my daddy nuts.

3.  The B is potty training!  She's gotten fairly good at pee but pooping is still a struggle.  We tried over Thanksgiving the first time but that was a huge disaster.  The experience dissolved into tears.  "Whose tears?", you might ask.  "Mostly mine", I will answer.  A week later she had a terrible diaper rash.  Probably the worst she's ever had, and I decided to put on her underwear to let her poor butt get some air.  The thought was that I would just change underwear and pants instead of diapers.  Three accidents later, she got a hang of the idea.  Or else she just got tired of having pee run down her legs and getting hosed down in the bathtub.

This isn't a milestone, but Jason and I registered for another half marathon.  This one is in January.  Even though it is only 5 weeks away, I'm not motivated to train because:

A.) It's next year which feels like a long time away

B.) Jason is getting faster than me, and that annoys me

C.) It's cold, dark, and foggy at 5am

It is fairly likely that this is my last post of the year, so I'll leave you with a favorite 2012 photo.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A, B, or C

I have 2ish weeks until the B's 2nd birthday.  For her first birthday I was so overwhelmed with just keeping her alive, it was really just a gathering of people.  This year, I'm determined to make it a themed birthday party.  This idea is causing me a huge headache.  I'm pretty sure at the end I'll be so overwhelmed, it'll just be me putting a cake on her plate, sticking it with 2 candles, and calling it a day.

However, if I can get my act together, the party is going to be Winnie the Pooh themed.  Winnie the Pooh is the B's current obsession.  If you even say Winnie, Pooh, or honey she flies into a tizzy.  Out of necessity my husband has coined the acronym WTP.  The B has not caught on, yet.

For the party, I really want to make her a dress in the same theme.  The pattern that I've fallen in love with was created by An at StraightGrain.  I'm not yet sure of the colors I want to use yet.  If you'll please excuse the bad art work, these are the 3 ideas I have:

Artwork on A would be painted bees.

Do you like A, B, or C?

Also, need some help with food ideas.  This is my list of what I have so far:

1. Tigger tails (cookies/pretzels with drizzled stripes of chocolate)
2. Rabbit's Garden (veggies to dip)
3. Honey Hive cake

Can you think of any ideas for Pooh themed entrees?

Game ideas for the 12 or so kids ranging from the age of 1 year to 4 include:

1. Pin the tail on Eeyore
2. Bee-Bag toss (shoot, I have to make these soon!)
3. Treasure hunt (water table filled with rice and stick toys inside)
4. Window Painting

We can't fit a bounce house at our home so I'm lost for other ideas to burn toddler energy.  Did I mention that most of the kids are boys!  Yikes.

Any toddler boy energy busters that you know of?  (preferably games that are not so destructive of themselves, their friends, or my house.)

Now that my panic is out of the way, let's talk racing!  The LA Rock N' Roll is coming up fast.  It is this Sunday and I'm more excited than nervous this time.  I'm not even worried about pooping my pants.  It may be because it's the 2nd time around, I'm running with Jason, and or I'm not shooting for a time. 

I'm certainly not prepared this time (shame on me), but it's meant to be more focused on running with Jason.  The longest distance he's cover so far is now 8.9 miles.  Which is fantastic for him!  In fact, I don't think he's ever run that far before.  Since I'm ever the brilliant one, I decided to run 12.1 miles on Saturday just to make sure I can finish the half.  It's good to know that I have not lost my base, but I sure was slow.  Whatever, I read somewhere that a half marathon doesn't need a taper.

Pumpkin Picking Poto Pomb

Last weekend was a wonderful blur.  I know this is post is outdated but little things like parenting, sleep, and my job get in the way.  At any rate here's my list of wonderful blurs:

1. My college friend came to visit from Malaysia

           We've talked on the phone and over email but have not seen each other since 2006.  It was so exciting to spend some time with her.  It's crazy that she doesn't look any different from the last time I saw her.  We were able to catch up some more and she got to see the B for the first time.  She said, "she looks smaller than I thought.  Maybe it's because you put her in those huge hats."  She's right, the B does live in huge hats because she's so fair and burns in the sun like her dad. 

2. My parents surprised me at the park
       
           Monday was my birthday so my parents drove down from SF to surprise me.  They showed up when we were at the park.  I was just chatting with a friend and this dog came running up between us.  My first thought was, what a rude owner.  Don't they know this is a park with kids?!  The next thought was, this dog looks just like my mom's dog.  Then when I saw my mom I realized that it was indeed my mom's dog.

3. Everybody stayed at our house

           It's so fun to have a full house bustling with activity.  The B seems to really enjoy it too and is much less whiny.  I think it's because she's getting so much attention.  If we have another kid, she is going to be in for one rude surprise. 

4. 7 mile run with the husband

          The race is next weekend and neither of us are prepared.  I've only run 7 times this month and the furthest I've covered is 7 miles.  *gulp*  We are in for a world of pain.  I foresee a lot of walking.  At least we'll be doing it together.
 
5. Pumpkin farm visit

           The farm was a 1.5 hour drive from our house.  The B watched the Winnie the Pooh movie on my iPad during the drive so it wasn't too bad.  They had a petting zoo and the B had a great time even though it was during her nap time.  I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Pumpkin Picking Photo bomb!

(Does it count as an alliteration if the first letters don't sound the same?  I'm sure the internet will tell me but I'm too lazy to look it up.  For now just do me a favor and say "Pumpkin Picking Poto" out loud.)

My little beauty

Now see here, you need to get back in line with the rest of your friends Mr. Pumpkin.

OMG!  He's so big and FLUFFY!

Can I have both of these?

Nevermind, this is the one I want. 
Yes, I know he is not a pumpkin.   But you said I could pick out something to take home
 and you didn't specify that it couldn't be a goat.

Sorry kid, I'm not taking that kid home.  Haha, get it?  Kid.  I crack myself up.  (My apologies, as it turns out, 5 hours of sleep plus a 5 mile run at 5am makes me more crazy than usual.)

Crafting Update

I currently have at least 10 ongoing crafting projects around the house.  Here are 3 that I have finally finished.

1.  The B has this jumper that I adore.  It's so soft and the color is just so cute.  The only problem is that the B hates the jumper.  She requires access to her belly button at all times.  We like to call it her emergency button.  She touches her belly button whenever she is feeling anxious.  Which is pretty much whenever we are in public.  So if you see us around and have a burning desire to see a toddler belly, just make eye contact with her and she'll reach for the emergency button.  Moving on with the jumper story, I cut off the bottom 3 inches to get clearance from the taper, snaps and elastic.  Then I sewed on a 4 inch trim.  The first time I sewed it I sewed the trim inside out.  durrrrrr.  While I was agonizing over having to tear it out (I used a zigzag stitch), my husband suggested that I sew another piece the right side up and just double the trim up.  Turns out my husband is brilliant.  The extra weight keeps the dress from coming up and it stays less wrinkled. 

I'm terrible at remembering to take "before" pictures.  So here is the faked before pic.

Here's the after picture on the B.  She is wearing Daddy's belt.  What can I say, the girl likes to accessorize.

2.  Here is a bubble dress that I made with an old bedsheet.  I followed a fantastic bubble dress tutorial by StraightGrain.  This is the first dress item of clothing I made for the B and the blogger made it so easy!  You can tell the B is delighted to model for me.

3.  The B has become addicted to Winne the Pooh.  She just loves everything about him.  She often goes around with the stuffed Pooh bear her Dad bought and pretends to feed him honey.  So I decided to crochet her a honey pot to feed the bear.  The B loves it and said "Choo choo", when I gave it to her.  (That's her version of Thank you.)

Defying the Alphabet

It has been a long time since I've blogged.  Consequently, this post will be a huge dump of what is going on around here.

1.  I got a new job!  It's a new role but the same company and same cubicle even.  The job starts Monday next week.  I'm excited to learn something new and terrified I'm going to fail and get fired.

2. Jason is training for a half marathon with me. :)  I signed him up when he only had 8 weeks to prepare.  (I may have gotten over enthusiastic.)  The training plan must have been too aggressive because he now has a slight injury.  We're working through it slowly.  The half has a 4 hour limit, so we could easily walk the thing if he is hurting too bad.  It is his first race ever and I'm so excited that he was willing to try.  (We don't do half-assed at our house!)

3.  The bed frame is FINALLY built and we are no longer sleeping on the floor.  The bed still needs a head board, a foot board, and drawers for the carcass.  I'm not making that up, woodworkers call the frame a carcass.  The word carcass gives me the heebie-jeevies.

4.  The B is stringing words together.  It is so fun to watch her learn and grow.  My little monkey is not so little anymore.  Everything is either, "NO!" or "OWN!" around our house now.  In general there is a lot of shouting.  I can't blame her as shouting new words is much more fun than just speaking them.  Try it, you'll see.

5.  Our social calendar is filling up.  We have something to do every weekend until December.  Turns out that having a kid makes you extremely busy with birthdays, play-dates, and classes.  We could always decline, but the B is so anti-social she really needs the time to play with other kids her age.  She has started to yell "NO!" at kids that want to come play with her.  Or else she just sits on our lap and glares at them.  I'm hoping it is just a phase.

Why would you want me to spend time with the riff-raff anyway?

**Disclaimer:  The following rant is super duper nerdy.  Feel free to skip it if you are the kind of person that doesn't like a good math joke like the d/dx, d/dy, e^x joke.  (Mei, you know the one I'm talking about.)

Lately, I've been really annoyed at the iPhone 5 commercials on TV.  What is really killing me right now is when the narrator talks smack about Physics and says, "I guess the laws of Physics is more of a guideline."  AHGHGHGHGHGh!!!! I just want to lunge through the TV and beat the narrator senseless.  Physics makes the iPhone possible.  In fact it is Solid State Physics and a little bit of Quantum because the components are so small.  It drives me crazy in the same way that people say something is gravity defying.  WTF?!?!  It ONLY works BECAUSE of gravity.  The only comparison I can come up with on why this is so infuriating is if someone said, "This sentence changes the fundamentals of the alphabet."  No, no it doesn't.  If it did, you would not be able to read it.  GAH!

Bittersweet

This is my one place to whine about running because other friends interpret it as bragging. So I'll start with the bad. Half marathon time 2:03:39 according to my gps. Boooo. I burned so much energy dodging walkers and people standing in line to take pictures. DURING a race. WTF?!?

Good news.
1. I finished and I wasn't last. Whoot!
2. Since its my first it is technically my PR.
3. I have to admit it was fun.
4. Here is the best part, hubby says he'll train with me if I do another. WIN! We'll have to work out logistics for baby care but I'm excited.

Lesson learned... I need to train for runs longer than 13 if I want to get faster. Plus I need to practice dodging people. Any volunteers to get in my way and try to trip me?

Feeling Punchy

On the off chance you don't know what feeling punchy means to me, here is a Urban Dictionary definition.

Can also be induced by sheer poop-my-pants terror.

With the half marathon race coming up in a couple of days all my bad habits concerning performance anxiety are popping up.  My list of bad behavior include:

1.  Thinking and planning excessively.  (The highlighted times are an estimate since I only ran 11 miles.)

2. Telling myself there is no way to meet my goals.  I tend to get super dramatic and feel that even a hair off my goal would be a complete and utter failure.  For example, my goal is to be under 2 hours, therefore 2:00:00 would be just as much as a failure as a 3:30 time.  Heads up for the next blog posting, it's going to be all about excuses.  I imagine something like:

                        1. Race day was too hot
                        2. My shorts chafed
                        3. My re-fueling gave me stomach cramps
                        4. I had to visit the port-o-potty every other mile
                        5. I didn't get enough sleep the night before

3. Making myself physically sick
4. Snapping at people who irritate me and right now that is just about everybody.

In the back of my head I know that everything will be fine and I'll have fun watching all the costumed people run around.  When the run actually starts I'm sure all the planning will go out of my head.

In other news I made a bubble dress for the B.  It was my first experience with ruching.  I think it's pretty cute but my reluctant model did not approve in the photo.  She did actually like it though, she spent 10 minutes twirling in front of her closet mirror.

I just twirled to make you feel better Mama.  I think this dress is ridiculous.  Can I take it off now?

Am I Stinky?

Yesterday during my long-for-me run of 11 miles, I approached a lady that was going at the same pace as me. Since I had already done my first 6 miles and exhausted my self entertainment possibilities, I thought it would be a nice change to run alongside someone for the next 5. We wouldn't even have to talk. She probably wouldn't even notice I was there, I thought.

As I pulled up to her, she sped up. So I sped up, and she sped up. I did this in increments of 10 secs pace decreases until she got to 8:15 which is just too fast for me to go for 5 more miles. Since it wasn't a big deal to me (I'm in my pseudo 2 week taper), I backed off. Oddly enough, so did she.

Since I'm that weirdo, I decided to experiment on her. After 4 more miles of varying the following distance, the final conclusion was that she was okay with me matching her pace 7ft behind her. As soon as I broke into that personal bubble she would speed up until she got 7ft ahead of me. I still can't decide if I'm the stinky-noisy-weirdo, or if she's the odd ball.

Regardless of my stinky/noisy/weirdo status, it got me thinking about what really ticks me off when I'm running.

1. People who don't stay in their lane at the track. That's what the painted lines are for!
2. People that leave their dog poop lying around for others to step in.
3. Running in humidity and heat. Bleh.
4. Carrying a water bottle.
5. Having to fuel midrun.
6. Running into the sun.

Regarding #3, I know that others outside of coastal CA have much worse weather to deal with and I feel a little bad about complaining. However, I don't feel THAT bad. So on my list it goes. I find that the few degrees of heat slows me down by at least 15-30 seconds per mile.

I imagine #1 on stay-7ft-behind-me lady's list is having stinky-noisy-weirdos latch on to her during her solo runs.

Later in the afternoon, the B and I gave her a mani and pedi.  Too bad it was just playdoh and ended up getting ground into the blanket we place on the floor.  It was so worth it to see her tottering off to show Daddy.  I've never seen the kid walk so carefully before.  I couldn't get both her head and hands in focus at the same time, so here are 2 photos of our girly afternoon.  Yes, that is a toilet seat in the background.  We bought the fancy kind that has also has a kid's toilet seat you can flip down. 

Look at my beautiful fingers and toes.

In case you couldn't tell, my mom is a bad photographer.

Since I am going on about bathroom matters, there is a bathroom war taking place on my floor at work.  There is some lady that:

1. Does not flush the toilet
2. Does not wipe down the toilet seat
3. Pees all over the floor. 

I'll spare you the photos of the unflushed toilet and the dirty toilet seat.  However, I had to share the photo of the floor around the toilet.  See all the shiny spots?  Yup, that's sticky pee.  HOW in the world does someone get spray that far?! 

What you can't see is the the spray spots extend all the way to the toilet on the left as well.

Since they haven't caught the person pee-handed, some people have been putting up signs around the bathroom.  People are so gross, I didn't realize we had to tell them to clean up after themselves.  Really though, I shouldn't be surprised since you see wash-your-hand signs in restaurants. 

A little angry.

Then there is the angrier sign.  If you can't read it, the sign says," If you have no cortesy to flush the FRICKING toilet, PLEASE go to anothe floor!!!"

Because the solution to any problem is to inflict it upon others.  Yes, we're all a big happy team.  Still, it really is super gross.  Sometimes I go to bathrooms on the other floors when all the toilet seats on my floor are covered with pee.  In case you were wondering, it's not me peeing on toilet seats.

To cleanse your palette of grossness, here's a photo of the super cute B.

If I smelled really bad, would you tell me?

Hey Stupid, Stop Eating Crap

If it were possible to have a conversation with my body it would probably go something like this:

Me: Why do you hate me so much I have to get the trots before AND after runs?
Body: Because you put crap in me.
Me: But it tastes so good.
Body: No it doesn't, you just watch too much TV and are easily swayed by commercials.  Don't deny it, brain told me so yesterday.
Me: Whatever, I'm having a snickers bar for lunch.  Take that.
Body:  Fine, but then you're going to spend lots of bonding time with the toilet at work.
Me: Dammit.  Oh well it's worth it.

While consuming my daily dose of crap last night, I snorted up some BBQ chips when we saw track cycling on the Olympics.  Really, Track Cycling?!  For this event, my husband had the funniest comment.  This was our conversation during the first part of the race where the bikers stall. 

Me and Jason: What is this?
Me: I don't get it, look up the DVR info, what is this called?
Jason: It doesn't say.
Me: What are they doing?  How do they win?
Jason:  . . . the guy that can go the slowest without falling wins.

Ok, it's not as funny in the morning.  But trust me, it was hilarious last night.  Also, the internet is devoid of track cycling memes.  Internet, you have let me down.

In other whiny noises, there needs to be a way to combine the entertainment factor of listening to an audio book and the pace boosting factor of music. I've been dreading my long runs because they are becoming exceedingly dull.  50 laps around a track can do that to you. 

In an effort to entertain myself and shake out of this funk, I listened to The Importance of Being Ernest.  The only Oscar Wilde I had read was Picture of Dorian Gray.  While I loved the novel, it felt pretty dark.  On the other hand, the Importance of Being Ernest, is hilarious.  It certainly made the run more entertaining.  If there were other people out at the track at 5am, they would have found me entertaining too since I was laughing like a lunatic.  Unfortunately for them, they missed out on that particular pleasure. 

At the same time it did felt harder.  I suppose the beat of the music helps move my feet along.  Looking back at my splits, they certainly reflected that I was going slower than usual.  Since I'm slow to begin with, this isn't great for improving my time.  Turns out I'm not skilled enough to listen to audio books and keep a pace at the same time. 

Yes, I am aware that I'm being melodramatic.

Losing at Chicken

Last week my husband and I decided to have ourselves a stay-cation since we had a babysitter gap.  The original plan was to leave bottles of milk and bowls of food out for the B while we went to work.  In the end we determined that the mess we would find when we got home and the potential of having to get her back from child protective services convinced us to stay home.  We looked at her, she stared us down, and we flinched. Score Me=0, B=1.  Besides, I had a good list of things I wanted to get done.  At least that's what I told myself.

1. Finish the B's activity table and chair
2. Finish the coffee table
3. Build our king sized bed
4. Build a step stool for a 2nd birthday present for a friend's kid
5. Build a step stool for the B
6. Potty train the B with the 3 day potty training guide
7. Hang photos on the wall
8. Clean the moving boxes out of the guest room

Take a wild guess at how many items I was actually able to check of the list.  3 out of 8 isn't bad, right?

Coffee table trundle, pre-clutter.

Activity table and chair in action.  My friend said that the B I painted looks like boobs.



Step stool in it's native environment.  It's like it grew from the hydrangeas. 

I could probably come up with lots of reasons/excuses why the rest of the list didn't get done.  The real reason is that I'm a lazy bum and a coward.  This brings me to Game of Chicken, the rematch.  Not satisfied with the loss, I embarked on the effort to start talking to the B about potty training.  Every time I talked to her about it, just sending messages that using the potty is fun and a big girl thing to do, her reaction was to throw a screaming-diva-fit.  What can I say?  The kid likes pooping in her diaper.  The guide does say to try it at 22 months.  So we have 1 more month.  Again, this is how I make myself feel better.  Score Me=0, B=2.

Final nail was when I broke down and bought the B a scooter.  She's been chasing after kids at the park on these death traps for months.  Some kids and their parents are nice and let her stand on it for a little before the babysitter pulls her off of it in tears (B's tears, not the babysitter).  Or they don't let her near it and it all ends in tears.  (Still the Bs)  It's no surprise that she loves her new wheels.  It was a surprise that with a choice between a helmet with colorful cartoon characters on it, and this Harley Davidson helmet, she choses to ride on the dangerous side.  I'm worried about what the future may bring....  biker boyfriends? 

Also here's evidence that she is a Daddy's girl.


Result of Daddy saying, "Smile for Daddy."

Result of Mama saying, "Smile, sweetie."

I think that I've got lots of chicken games to lose in the future.

Butchering Idioms and Culture Loss

Why oh why are Fartleks so darn hard?  It's supposed to be speed "play", but really, it's just torture.  It's hard to say why I keep trying them.  My theory is that I really hate myself.  Also, I found that it does make me faster.  So, no pain no gain, or something like that. 

The fun thing about being a child of parents who speak English as a second language is that you get to learn all the fun idioms later in life.  Then you have the capacity to really savor the literary magic that they are, Ha!
It's also humorous to listen to my mom butcher them. 

1. Kill a Horse (Beat a Dead Horse)
2. If It's Pouring, It Rains (When It Rains, It Pours)
3. Hammered the Nail (Hit the Nail on the Head)

Most of the time I haven't the heart to correct her.  Largely because she won't remember next time anyway, and also because I know what she is trying to say.  To her credit, some of them ie, cat got your tongue, are just plain weird.  Also, my mom knows a shit ton of idioms in Chinese.  Not to bag the English idioms, Chinese sayings are actually beautiful.  The majority of them are only 4 words long, rhyme, and have elaborate stories that go along with them.  They are supposed to save time by conveying a complex message quickly, but it takes longer for me because she has to stop to tell me the story.  It doesn't help that the Chinese people have a long history to draw stories from. 

It saddens me a little that the B will get such a diluted version of the Chinese culture.  Amongst many other things, she probably won't experience:

1. Praying to ancestors using incense and bowing
2. Folding paper boats to burn for ancestors
3. The anticipation of red envelopes for Chinese New Year
4. Having moon cake for the moon festival because I'm terrible with dates and always forget

Growing up my Chinese friends and I would joke that we are like bananas, yellow on the outside and white on the inside.  Since the B is only half Chinese, I'm not even sure what she'll resemble.  Is there such thing as an albino banana?  She's a good mix I suppose, she doesn't enjoy noodles but she sure does love her rice.

At any rate, I'm making the resolution to speak more Chinese to her.  Even though she does look at me strangely when I try.

Hmmm, I don't know if I like the sound of this...

Reasons to Smile

This weekend was probably the best 2 days I've had since Christmas.  I got a lot done and had a great time.

1.  First it was making orange "cups" to encourage the B to get more fiber into her diet.  She's been making little poop pellets lately.  My dad used to make these little orange treats for us when we had dinner guests. 

Wouldn't you have rather seen pictures of her rabbit poo?  Sorry to disappoint.

She's leaving me unsupervised with a toothpick, this is SO much fun!

2.  My wonderful husband let me run amok with his tools and build this activity table and chair for the B.  (I followed Ana White's plans.)  I cut and assembled the boards.  He helped me set up the miter saw for a double bevel after I used up all my 2x2s for the legs because I forgot the second bevel.  Before that, Jason also rushed to the store to get me more wood.  He also served as my custom-clamp-guy and my table-saw-guy.  Table saws freak me out.  I don't think I'll ever learn how to use one.  At the end of each cutting session, Jason counted my fingers to make sure I still had 10.  And where was the B for all of this you ask?  That's where the best part of this weekend happened.  Jason spent the whole weekend entertaining the B so that I could play! 

3.  Last but certainly not least, I broke my 20 year PR for distance of 10 miles.  I ran 10.77 miles in 1:41:39.  Very very exciting for me!  I feel proud considering I was running 3 miles @ 12 min/mi just 6 months ago.  What I wasn't super proud of was jacking the B's water bottle for the run because I don't have one I can easily hold.  I love my Nalgene for hiking but it would be like carrying a copy of A Dance With Dragons on a run.  Good thing she was still sleeping when I left so she couldn't protest.  Her new favorite word is MINE, said emphatically and loudly.  



Gloating at my PR and water bottle jacking skills.

So what did I learn on my run?

1. Fueling mid run is going to take practice.  I had too much water with the bloc chew and gave myself a pretty bad stomach cramp for miles 7 and 8.
2. I need an arm band for my phone because shoving it down my pants messes up the GPS.  During mile 6 while I was refueling, I accidentally shut off the GPS app and had to restart it.  After that, it kept saying my pace was 10:30 but I thought that I was going faster.  But then I thought, maybe I really am going that slow, so I sped up and it said I was going 10:45.  I restarted the app again and it sure enough, my pace was 8:30.  Oddly enough, the summary was correct in spite of the issues.  Which brings me to . . .
3. I can run faster.  I'm afraid of getting too tired to finish, but I really can go a little faster without dying.
4. Running in pants = no chaffing.  I guess I'm going to have to hope that the race isn't hot so I can wear my pants to run.

All the Money in the World

If you were to have asked me 1 hour ago what I would do with all the money in the world, I would not have replied with meaningful ideas like solving world hunger or world peace.  I would had said something like, get the fat sucked out of my inner thighs so they can't rub anymore.  But uttered in more colorful language. 

Turns out, once the chafing starts, it does not stop.  I only had a 4 mile run this morning and I wanted to kick the first squirrel I saw.  Fortunately for squirrels, they don't live on a rubber tracks.  Here are some fun facts about chafing:

1. It hurts, a lot
2. Even if it doesn't bleed, the top layers of your skin separate from the other layers, gross
3. Chaffing spots scab.  WTF?
4. It feels like someone is scouring your tender spot with steel wool when you shower
5. You walk like a crab for the rest of the day, and coworkers will ask if something is wrong with you

If you remember my comment in the last post about shortless running, this is the picture I should have had.  I saw this in a Lulu ad.  Yes, I am a Lulu addict.  I blame the yoga.

I'm hoping that all the chafing and scabbing will make my inner thighs tougher.  I'll be Lady Lizzard Legs.

Or this super creepy character.

The Chafing, Oh the Chafting!

I'm finally able to keep up with my training schedule. Largely due to:

1. Icing my shins every friggin night and foam rolling whenever I remember  
2. The fear of disappointment beaten into me at a young age. Nothing makes me more ashamed than disappointing.
3. Finally, it just feels good to run. Except when it doesn't.

Perfect example of #3 was Sunday, I was completely let down by my favorite shorts. Holy chafing! It started hurting around mile 7, but since I only had 1 more mile to go, I just ran through it.  All the while, checking every half mile for bleeding.   In order to get the shorts off as fast as possible, I ran home instead of walking while seriously considering if I would get arrested for running without my shorts.  Unfortunately, the shorts are one of those built-in-underwear types.  So it would have been half streaking?  On they stayed.  You can thank me for not taking naked pictures later.  In the end, 9.1 miles with the last 2 miles in chafing hell.

The rest of the weekend was full of woodworking.  I used a miter saw for the first time (the husband gave me instructions and pretended not to supervise while he hovered nearby).  Even the B "helped". 

Look Mama, I can sand with my eyes closed!

The B got all bent out of shape because we would not let her draw on the table.  She became especially whiny when she saw that Daddy was allowed to.

You two are such hypocrites.

We got the plans from http://www.ana-white.com/.  All her plans are free and super clear.  The doll bed was one of her plans as well.  The best part of the coffee table is that it is a trundle and the whole bottom piece is one big box on wheels to stuff all of the B's toys into.  At the end the table is supposed to look like this:

The 20 Second Tidy Up

The B's Vocab Update: Her new favorite words are:

1. Butt
2. Bite
3. Noooooohhh, No NO No No No

Options and Milestones

There are many reasons I love my husband.  Usually his sense of humor doesn't make it to top 10 on the I-love-you-because list.  His humor is usually the kind that you don't really get, and once it's explained, it's more of an eye roller.  Today however, I busted out during the lull of a meeting and everybody stopped to stare.  I feel I just have to share the email below.

So we have a slight problem.   We're going to have 4 days without a sitter.


Option 1: I take that week off as vacation
Option 2: you take those 4 days as vacation ( I think that Friday is your 9/80)
Option 3: we try out that sitter city service
Option 4: we take a trip somewhere like the grand canyon, Minnesota/south Dakota, or northern California.
Option 5: we leave out a bowl of food and loop sesame street on the tv


Thoughts?

I vote for Option 5.  Although she has been a lot more fun to be around these past few weeks.  You can actually see her learning and she's mimicking words and gestures.

B's Vocabulary at 19M:

1. Animal Noises (Mooooo(cow), aaaaah(sheep), squeak(duck, chicken, pig)
2. Mama/Dada
3. Uuupah(up)
4. Baaaaa(bug)
5. Dowwww(down)
6. Baba(Bonnie)
7. Shoooo(shoes)
8. Nooohhh(no)

This brings me to midyear milestones.

Milestone #1: Words
The biggest milestone for all of us is that the B is starting to use words instead of screaming.  Don't get me wrong, there is still screaming.  A lot of screaming.  I feel bad for our neighbors.

Milestone #2: Battle Stories
Another big milestone this week was the B's first battle wound from a playground bar fight.  A boy about 5 years old came up to the B and bit her in the belly.  According to the sitter, the mom was on her cell and when she was told what happened she was only offhandedly apologetic.  If I were there I would have ripped her a new one.

Battle Scar #1

Milestone #3: Bloodless Watermelon Fruit Basket

For the midweek 4th of July we went to a BBQ at a friend's house.  It felt so strange for both my husband and I because we only got Wednesday off.  At any rate it was my task to bring the fruit salad and wine.  The conversation with the husband went well.

Jason: What are we doing for the 4th of July

Me: We're going to a BBQ and I have to bring fruit salad and wine.

Jason: Great idea, what are you going to do about the fruit salad

Me: I'm going to carve a watermelon basket.

Jason: . . . . . that's not a good idea . . .

Me: Why not?

Jason: You and a knife, really?  It's not a good idea.

My husband has such faith in me.  To be fair, as many times as I've run to him with a bloody hand, I'm lucky to have all my fingers.  Luckily, we were able to have a tasty fruit salad.





Mama did such a good job carving, Daddy has no idea what he's talking about.

Do you think they'll notice if I sneak a blueberry?

mmmmm stolen berries are the best!

Milestone#4: Catching Up With Technology

I've finally discovered Instagram!

Wild World Can Eat It

On my long for me Sunday track run, I started getting bored and began to over-analyze the lyrics to songs.  In particular I was getting irritated with the song "Wild World."  Don't judge, I use Pandora and IT picks the songs.  In case you aren't familar with the song, the lyrics are below.

Now that I've lost everything to you,
you say you want to start something new,
and it's breaking my heart you're leaving,
baby I'm grieving.

But if you wanna leave take good care,
hope you have a lot of nice things to wear,
but then a lot of nice things turn bad out there.

Oh baby baby it's a wild world,
it's hard to get by just upon a smile.
Oh baby baby it's a wild world.

I'll always remember you like a child, girl.
You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do,
and it's breaking my heart in two,
cause I never want to see you sad girl,
don't be a bad girl,
but if you want to leave take good care,
hope you make a lot of nice friends out there,
but just remember there's a lot of bad and beware,

In addition to being way too slow to run to, these are the reasons I found the song irritating:

1. The guy doesn't want his girl to go so he insults her by not having faith in her abilities and thinks that she just gets by "just upon a smile"
2. At the same time he suggests that she has "at lot of nice things to wear."  Seriously? WTF does that have to do with going out into the wild world?
3. As a parting blow he says that there is a lot of bad out in the world.  Well Mister, it doesn't seem like you are adding a lot of good into her life either if you are trying to hold her back with fear.

If you read this far, then all I have to say is "I'm sorry" but I did warn you that it was over-analyzed. 

Bean-Face says, "That was a total waste of time, and I didn't understand a single word"

Well maybe this will give you a bit of a chuckle.

What do you think about when boredom hits you during a run?