Double Edge Sword

One of my favorite parts of running is that it gets me my "ME" time. It gets me out of the house, away from "mom mom mommy mama momomomomomomomomom" and various decibles. I dont care about my kitchen, my laundry, or anything else. All I worry about is putting on foot in front of the other and making sure my garmin going.

One of my least favorite aspects of running is that its not something I can do with my family. Well, I guess I can, but my jogging strollers wheel was destroyed by sandburrs and hasnt been fixed yet so that takes the boys out. Stinkerbell can make it .16 miles before freaking out about it being to cold. And Shawn, well, he could do it but is his words "doesnt want to".

My example: Warrior Dash is coming to Nebraska!!! Im soooo freakin excited. I have wanted to do a Warrior Dash since I first heard about them a few years ago but the closest one was in either Southern Colorado or Kansas City. Now, this year, we are getting ein an obscure town I have never heard about waaaay off in the Eastern part of the state might well be Iowa. Its June 9th....life will have slowed down a bit by then.....calving will be done, brandings done, haying shouldnt have started yet so he doenst have the "work" excuse to not run.

Warrior dash is 3.3 mile mud run with obstacle courses....mud pits, rope courses, fire pits yes fire pits....and its only 3.3 miles.  I know to someone who isnt a runner, 3.3 miles sounds like a marathon but really....when you toss in 10 obstacle courses, I'm willing to bet 3.3 goes by pretty darn fast. Plus, FREE BEER at the finish line. What about that doesnt sound awesome?? Gotta love races with beer sponsors!!!

According to my husband....none of it.  I even tried the "your just scared your wife will school you" and that didnt get a flicker of interest.  So even though we hunt together and snowmobile together.  Really...he can totally do it. He can scamper through the hills after critters, he can run a Warrior Dash.  Apparently running together isnt going to happen. Not gonna lie...that bums me out. Since he doesnt run with me, he is the obvious poor fool choice to stay with the kids. For most, that means yay...free babysitting p.s. not babysitting when its your own kids but to me it means no one at the finish line. No one to celebrate my accomplishment with. No one to empathize over pain and bad runs with.

Ok, that last part isnt entirely true....I have an AMAZING group of running friends friends who run and they get it. I can comiserate with them about injuries, pace, distance and whatever all I want, but Im still kinda jealous of the people who can train with their husbands and wives. It would be so good for Shawn, who has a family history of heart problems, to get into better shape. But I cant seem to drag him out of the house. He was hitting the dreadmill several mornings a week but that seems to have stopped also. We have a month before calving starts so thats his excuse now....why get started when in a month, he wont have the time to give to running.

Im not totally giving in yet.....I may sign him up, throw him in the car and pretend we are going to the Casino in Iowa, with a stop along the way to run the Warrior Dash.  He might want try kill me....but whatever motivates him to run after with me in the race is great......he has to catch me first ;-)

Old

I have come to a conclusion.

I'm getting old.

Not just oldER but old. I am OK with oldER but old....not.so.much.

Case in point....today while I was getting ready to for quick run around town after picking Stinkerbell up from school I did the following:

-Put a compression sleeve on my left leg (to help an aching left calf)
P.S. I run IN compression tights.
-Rubbed Theragesic on my right knee and my left shoulder
-Took compression tights off as I forgot to do the Theragesic on my knee BEFORE putting them on. Again. Memory is the first thing to go.
-Took 3 ibuprofen.
I used to do that as a pre-emptive strike against the hangover Gods....now its a pre-emptive strike against aching joints.

I would have stretched alot but I did 50 minutes of yoga earlier so I felt pretty stretched out.

Ran 4 miles and I kinda want to go soak my aching back quads shoulder calves body in a warm bath. To bad my 2 year old just figured out how to open the bathroom door. Grrrr.

Really.....I'm 32. Not 82 (no offense to any 82 year old readers I may not have).

Perfect Timing

Its been one of those weeks.  I don't really feel bad or sad or anything like that....I'm just kinda....there. 

We are working on some spurs this week so Shawn has been out in the shop every free moment he has all the time.  Which means I'm on mommy duty all.damn.day.  That sounds terrible, I know.  I'm well aware....I have mommy-guilt coming out of my ears because of it but really....these 2 are driving me up a wall.  Up and across a wall.  Up and down the great freakin' wall of China. 

My afternoon replacement player has been coming in and leaving again a few hours later...which sends HIS children into a tail spin, which they then drag me into.  They miss their daddy and don't handle it well when he comes and goes and comes and goes. 

Its not that I don't adore my children.  Its not that I don't love them and want to spend time with them.  I love watching them play together and learn new things.  Sage has come MILES in just the last few weeks.  He will count to 3 and show me with his fingers at the same time.  He has the color RED down and BLUE sorta down (gets it mixed with GREEN sometimes).  That may not seem like much but for my preemie who is about 6 - 9 months behind other 2 year old....that's a big deal. 

Thankfully, without even knowing, my running friends suggested some afternoon running around town.  I'm not usually an afternoon runner....I prefer morning runs but more then that, I enjoy running with humans not just canines and bovines.  I skipped my Monday morning run in favor of Jamie's invitation to run around town.  Katie joined us, we headed out for 4. 

Run was good but Jamie struggled with her breathing a bit.  She was pissed annoyed frustrated and bummed about it so she said she would give it another go today after her husband gave her his not-so-helpful advice.  I told her I would be there and meet up for our second afternoon cruise around town.

Apparently it was exactly what she needed as we kicked that run in the ass (she averages a 10:00-10:30 as a comfortable pace and we came in at 10:11....AWESOME!!).  My legs were sore since I was on my 3rd day of running in a row totally didn't care so I was very happy to not be racing anyone or anything...just a nice, easy pace around town. 

Also exactly what I needed.....a break from my kids.  While they still drive me over the edge faster then anything else I have to sit back and celebrate them.  And the fact that for some reason my friends know exactly what I need, when I need it.  Call it karma.  Call it fate.  Call it whatever the hell you want.....I needed afternoon breaks from my kids these past few days and thanks to them, I got them.  Seriously, without Jamie suggesting the afternoon running I may have spilled the wine that I had perfectly balanced in my left hand, while holding off Sage with the right hand while Bran attempted STRESS ATTEMPTED to climb up the foot rest of the reclining chair I was sitting in.  THAT would have been tragic.

Run with the WInd

It's official. 

I have lost my mind.

35mph winds with gusts to 50+ but my long run was scheduled for today, so I had to get it done.  So I consulted weather.com, determined which direction the wind was coming from and had Shawn drive me 5 miles in that direction.  If I was going to run outside and deal with Mother Nature's attitude problem I was at least going to use what I could of it to my advantage.

Shawn did point out that I was crazy out of my mind loco nuts and, as if I didn't already know this, felt it necessary to inform me that "even the stupid cows were standing on the downside of a hill....out of the wind."  Thank you, honey, for informing me I was stupider then a cow.
It was a great run!! 

Couple big hills to climb, that I really need to run more often to get my hill work in.  Some cross winds that I was able to keep a good pace through (thanks to curvy roads, that didn't last long) and a Manic Mommies podcast about setting goals and achieving them, I didn't even really think much about the wind.

I did start to think about my aching right knee.  Time to start some icing.  I'm really hoping its just getting used to the new shoes and that I wont have to switch out of them because they don't have enough support.  It does make me really happy I didn't drop $180 on the Newtons I really thought I wanted.

Pinterest Recipe......Round 1

To say there will be a round 2 to MAY be a bit premature.  Judging from the not-so-splendid aroma coming from my oven...I may call it quits with Round 1.

Obviously you can tell I caved to the pinterest-pressure.  Love BTW!  Almost immediately I found some amazing looking goodies, one of which included these.

Rest assured, mine will look NOTHING like this.

Of course, I called my mother in law and said "HEY, we have work to do on buckles tonight....ill bring my new recipe!!"  That may have been what pissed off the cooking gods.

First clue things were not going to go well....when I couldn't find the wonton wrappers at the grocery store in town.  Not in our little town, I knew they wouldn't have anything that exotic, but at the slightly bigger store in the next town over.  The very nice stocker guy did help me find something that we thought could work.....pre-made pastry cuppy-thingy!  From the picture on the box clue #2 they looked perfect.  I even checked to make sure they could be baked (props from the cooking's Gods...you can pat my back now.  Really, that's about as successful as this adventure gets.)

Fast forward, time to start baking.....get the beef all browned (that I can handle, do that alot) get out the perfect little cups......W.T.F.  They are the size of a quarter. 

A Q.U.A.R.T.E.R. 

How is the H-E-double hockey sticks am I going to make a pastry shell that doubles as a bed for Thumbalina work as the wrapper for my lasagna cupcakes??

Ill tell you how.....I'm not....but I had already started and I didn't have any regular lasagna noodles so I was screwed so I wasn't going to back down.  I crumbles the delicate little cups up (each one filled the BOTTOM of the cupcake holder, in case you were wonderidng)  And started layering.

Ran out of ricotta cheese so I added in some cottage cheese.  I'm sure I have made lasagna with cottage cheese before....sure of it.

Ran out of mozzarella.  Thankfully had some leftover in the fridge....still good (Ill take the pat on the back back, thanks)

Opened the oven to find I hadn't moved the racks....and couldn't find an over mitt.  FYI - make sure the towel you use in place of missing over mitt ISN'T thin and DOESN'T have holes.  If he does, don't grab there.)

Got the 24 lasagna cupcakes into the over, forgot to top with Parmesan cheese.  So I added it.  Ever spilled pram cheese all over the inside of your over.....not.pleasant.

I just took them out of the oven.  They do not look like the picture, but they don't look as terrible as I had imagined they would.  I cant get them out of the cupcake pan as without a wrapper, I'm afraid they will fall apart so pan and all is headed down to Karen's house for supper.

She has salad and wine....if my lasagna falls apart, it wont be a total loss!

Hammer and Wrench

Ya know the saying that someone put a "wrench" in your plan/day.  Well, I have a wrench and a hammer.

Hammer is on the left, Wrench on the right.

They are 1 and 2, cute (lucky for them), and today are into more Trouble then I can keep up track of.

And I do mean Trouble with a capital T.

So far today my little tools have locked themselves into a locked kitchen cupboard (still not sure how that one happened) after they emptied the contents.  Have given each other a black eye (hammer) and bloody scratch on cheek (wrench).  Bran aka Hammer cause he breaks or crashes into everything, just handed me a knife he got off the counter in the kitchen, that Sage (wrench) helped him climb onto by opening all the drawers and showing him how to climb.  They have dumped sissy's tooth brush in the toilet (again) after stacking magazines from our "reading material" in front of the bathroom counter and scaling that.

Did I mention last night we moved B out of his crib because while Sage can climb in and out of that, no problem, Mr. Uncoordinated would get half-way up, get stuck and start freaking out.  Then Sage would feel the need to "elp" and "ix" the situation but removing Bran's white-knuckled death grip from the railing of the crib.  I swear, you could feel the house shake then that 33lbs of boy hit the floor and probably hear the screaming in Kansas.

They have busted into my bedroom, pulled out dresser drawers, emptied said drawers so that they could climb into the drawers and wrench then climbed up another level to the top of my dresser and proceeded to throw everything from up there onto his brother, in the drawn below him.  Hammer  then relocated all objects to the floor.  Which was actually a good thing because when he fell out of the drawer, he landed on the stuff so he didn't get hurt.  I'm telling ya....no coordination on that child what.so.ever.

After banishment from my bedroom, I foolishly sent them to play in their own room I had to send them somewhere and with 15 degrees and 50mph winds, outside wasn't an option.  Well it was but I'm still going for runner up Mom of the Year where they cant get the drawers of their dresser open. 

They can, apparently, use the diaper stacker as a climbing wall.  Which they did.  It now sits on the porch in multiple pieces.  Lucky for me I think they emptied the contents onto their beds before proceeded with their climb.  Unlucky for me, after the crash, they wanted to play on their beds...which meant everything that had been on their beds was now on the floor dresser EVERYWHERE.

To top it all off, I have a big test in my class tonight that I really need to study for and a house that looks like a bomb went off and two buckles to design.  Piper is playing at halftime of the HS girls basketball games both Thursday and Friday, which is great for the kids, but I cant promise the tools will make it to both games.  I may need a break and their dad, head screw-driver, may have to wrangle them at home so I can go cheer for Stinkerbell in a hot, crowded, loud gym.  But I wont be chasing them so Ill take it!!!

AND, I DVR'd the season premiere of Justified last night and had to stop it 1 2 3 times because of THEM.  Now I cant find the remote control to watch it.  Messing up my room and theirs is one thing, keeping me from a Raylan Givens fix is completely uncalled for.

Do you see a theme here.....CLIMB.  Or as the wrench (aka Thing 1 and occasionally, Sage) would say "Imb! Imb!"

No, nap time is not near.  Yes, I have wine.

Braaaaap!!!!

I love snow.  I love cold.  I LOVE WINTER!!

I thoroughly enjoy the burn of cold air hitting my lung and the sting on my face.  Don't ask me why, I'm from Michigan.....its how I grew up.

Last year I went on my first snowmobiling trip with Shawn, Jamie and her husband Shane.  ADDICTED.  That's all I could say I LOVE LOVE LOVED IT!! 

We just came back from our first trip of this year, to Snowy Range Mountains in Wyoming. 

Beautiful Scenery



Yes, that's the parking lot.

Top of the Glacier.
First day started slow.....because of a couple breakdowns, and Jamie and I being on new sleds that made our rides from last year seem like toys for our kids.  It took sometime to get used to them, but we did!!

Climbing the Glacier
We climbed a Glacier, turned circles, got buried, ended up on our sides, pushed  ourselves sleds past our fears and to 50 mph (me) and 60mph (Rockstar Jamie).

Success!!
A couple of near disasters not involving us and a near disasters that did involve us me.

Oops!
No photos of my disasters but I can tell you that I ran over Chris' leg and almost crashed into a tree Shawn's sled which Iwas riding after flipping mine over.  In the same spot.  The leg and crashing/tree issue were not at the sametime.  Chris stayed out of the way after the leg thing...smart man.

Sunday, my confidence was MUCH higher then Saturday and I wish we could have had more time but the whole parental duty mommy guilt was calling.  I was actually starting to get it and wasn't afraid that Shawn would sell my sled because I was not worthy of riding it anymore (which I was pretty sure he was thinking when we first got started). 

Jamie and I
We have another trip planned for February to one of my FAVORITE places....Deadwood South Dakota!   The Black Hills are calling and hopefully they have snow.

Lots of thanks to EVERYONE who helped us out this weekend.....Mat and Lindsey (who doesn't ride like she just started last year AT ALL), Mike and Tina, Shane and Jamie (she may have as many rides under her belt as I do but she is a rockstar and watching her helped me push myself), Chris (who I probably owe alot as he did keep helping me out even after I ran him over....just after I was off the sled), and of course, Shawn, who didnt revoke my sled privileges was very patient with me most of the time and the fact that I was crazy intimidated by the skill of the people we were riding with.

 Break time (aka, digging someone out).
 

Shawn attempting doing snow-doughs


Once again, Great times with Great friends!!  Happy Sledding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!