Showering

Stephen & Sarah
Originally uploaded by wellingtonrabbit

Pat, Laurie and Jenn gave Stephen & Sarah a baby shower last Saturday and it was well attended by family and friends of all ages.

The weather which threatened all day off and on was perfect and the cookout part by Orren a yummy success.

S&S got lots of really nice gifts from baby clothes to furniture. Lydia even gave Baby Ball one of her favorite personal baby toys.

After the party Em, the kids, AJ, Donny & myself went to S&S's house to see the new bamboo floors and the ready and waiting nursery complete with comfy glider chair.

We visited a while and then it was time to go to AJ's for sleeping.

"You are dragging us from house to house to house," moaned Martin, our family member that lacks a transition gene. But he survived and even got a chance to school Andrew on Lego Stars Wars the next morning. Schooling Andrew on anything is a coup, the wealth of knowledge that he is.

Baby Ball #1 is due in about six weeks!!

Stephen is already planning the first basketball game.

500 miles

Lydia's after school enrichment class held a small performance this week and it could not be missed.

The time was 1PM, not bad unless you dawdled too much leaving home and then got stuck in a traffic snarl.

So by the time I got to Richmond I had 1 hour and fifteen minutes to finish up the trip to northern Virginia. Be late I told myself or go for it. The go self won.

I am just waiting for the by mail speeding ticket. I thanked Donny a hundred times for putting the V6 engine in my Rav4. At that I could not keep up with a new SUV Saturn that was figuratively and almost literally flying.

No directions please, I told Emily after the show as we were headed to the house to unwind for a bit before I headed home. I mostly know how to get there but a few turns are fuzzy. I will follow you I said. I used up my directions allowance on getting to the school, into the school, and to the right classroom on time.

But back to the show. A hit! They sang and performed from the heart. Fifteen minutes and it was over but every one of the 500 total driving miles was worth seeing those precious minutes. And THE SMILE with,"Grandma!!" that greeted me as I walked in the door beating the start of the performance by about 10 minutes.

Lydia told her teacher that I was coming to see the show. The same grandma that made your Mary dress she was asked. "Yes, my dress for the Mary & Joseph show," came the reply.

There's definitely theater in that gal.

Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My

I think the problem is fixed now. Sorry about that faithful readers. I refer to the ability to comment or lack thereof. Guess my settings were a bit unsettled. But anyway it's mended so keep those cards and letters coming folks, we bloggers LOVE comments.

Patiently Waiting

In my sorting travels I came across this card among the History of Andrew papers and pictures. It was still in the original envelope and I guess that is what warranted a look see as I was not being that thorough in my sorting the wheat from the chafe.

There inside a Christmas card from Granddaddy & Beatrice (this automatically dates the card to it least 15 years ago as Granddaddy, now deceased, went through 2 more wives) waiting to be acknowledged was this snappy $20 bill.

I'm figuring the patient bill was never used because there was a thank-you note involved that most likely never got written. And Andrew (twenty-something) ,was really good at writing a great thank-you note too, as were the rest. The Mom policy in those formative years was you can have your money after you write the note.

I think the collective, all five now adults, is probably glad they are beyond the reach of that policy now.

Weekend

Our weather changed from balmy to bad over the weekend but it made for good reading time. I continue to make progress in the BIG clean-up and out. For me it takes time to think it through.

Some things which seem useless are worth a second chance. For example we have this wooden elephant that has sat on the upstairs lamp stand for years. It has round discs that you stack in some type of game format on the elephant's back but they have only been used as shims to keep the attic access closed tightly for who knows how long. Gotta go I reasoned, we have a new attic access now, no need for the shim substitutes and how do you play the game anyway? But before tossing it in the thrift store pile, I decided to check on line and actually found the rules to the game on this all things elephant website. You roll dice to determine how many discs get stacked until someone topples the stack. It will be fun to play with M & L since it is basically a counting game and by using two (or more) dice instead of the suggested one, the stack should tumble quickly. Another bonus, a short game!

A very cute read is Flush by Carl Hiassen. It's a kids book but don't let that stop you. It is his usual fast pace and snappy to read type plot.

Cute Overload is a favorite website to check in with and today was no exception. There is an artist in all of us.

Threads

Right self: Throw more stuff away!

Left self: Why?

RS: It's dusty clutter.

LS: Well, if you threw everything away you would not have that tiny little notebook you found today that was Andrew's when he was seven.

RS: You mean the one where he wrote that Emily is his best friend? And they play Life together. And the 700 Club is his least favorite TV show?

LS: That's the one.

RS: It's just a dingy notebook.

LS: And look, here he writes in his scrawly seven year old printing, that what he likes most about Emily is that she lets him have a dip in her prize bag. And that math is his favorite class. And that he likes to root against E-Z For U. And that his favorite team is UNC.

RS: I'm never going to get anything thrown away. Let me see that notebook...

Elite Eight

Looking good Carolina. And I guess I get to watch the games because the point spread gets even better once I settle in. Unlike Em who cannot watch because things begin to fall apart every time she does. When she was here, we had the game on the radio going to the aquarium and we would turn up the volume occasionally to catch the score and then turn it back down again. Taking NO chances.

My heel seems to be healing. Yeah!! Like Donny says, now it is hard to believe it ever hurt so badly. But it did, definitely. I broke down Monday and bought some Crocs because Cathie said her doc told her they were very good for plantar fascia and/or heel spurs. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the shoe store to discover there were Crocs that I actually liked. New styles way beyond the old regular style which did not fit me anyway. I got two pairs. My favorite is a pair of Carolina blue fur lined (that can be popped out for washing) slip ons. I wore them to yoga today.

When I got up I thought my heel was not ready even for yoga but then I decided that some yoga was better than none and since it was pillow day I went. But I am letting that count for MEE30 as I am still limping a bit.

Em called today looking for a colonial costume for Jessica, Chrissy's 9 year old. I dug in the costume closet which has not been purged yet and found the costumes I made for all of us for the 400th celebration. A bit of washing and dying brought new life to Em's costume which should fit Jessica with only a bit of altering.

Tuesday was Jenn's birthday and we tried to sing happy birthday to her but called after she had already gone to bed. That's a new mom for you! Retiring early.

Well tonight I am retiring later than usual but that is because I have gotten lots of extra sleep and no tiring workouts because of said heel.

Just got a text from a friend who is in LA visiting the grands. She wants a cranial when she gets back to town. It will be good to see her again. Her oldest daughter and Donald went to the 8th grade dance together. Just a fun piece of trivia.

Ciao!!

Oh Heel

In an attempt to keep up with myself I have decided to do more posting here and so we'll see how this goes. My glorious running schedule hit an annoying snag yesterday in the form of a heel flare up. My right heel has been acting poorly off and on for about a month now, but nothing I could not work through.

Then in interval class yesterday it started hurting so badly that I had to literally stop running, which we were doing at the time, and just walk. Suzanne got me some ice although nothing was visibly swelling. And then on the next interval, after I had rested for a moment, I tried to catch up. We were doing a routine on the step and the heel hurt but was managing when boom I fell over the step not hurting anything but my pride. So I hung up my workout for the day. We were almost finished with interval anyway but I skipped yoga, which would have been good to do, because I wanted to go home and lick my wounds.

Today the heel is better. Donny put me right into my Heel That Pain soles which I always wear to class but at home I run around barefooted. He suggested I put the shoes on all day and so I did and today I am only limping a bit. Still no running or walking, so I am down a day on MEE30 but so it goes.

Donald called last night. They had just finished snorkeling with a huge turtle and were really stoked about that. They were off to dine in Waikiki a bit later.

D and I went to see Spiderwick Chronicles in Manteo tonight. It was a nice made for TV movie. On the way there we heard a piece on NPR about an experiment these guys did to put folks in a better mood. All you had to do was find and click on the smiling face on each page of the game. Surprisingly people's work success etc was far more productive and better after playing the game for x number of times, not that much but I forget the details. So if you want to pump yourself up an easy way go to MindHabits and play. It's very short.

Putting the heel to bed now.

Just One More

We had an Easter egg hunt with the grands last week and Em and I labeled the eggs so both M&L would have equal bounty. But we forgot to count how many even though we had a fair idea.

Once the hunt was finished and the eggs were being emptied, I started matching up eggs and counting them because we had also used equal amounts of blue eggs. pink eggs, shiny eggs etc. It seemed we were off by a few but Em reminded me that the color match up was not exact so I agreed with her that none were left behind.

Later when we went outside to jump on the trampoline we discovered an M egg in the play refrigerator. Opps! And today I found its partner L egg in the white swan. No great loss, there was plenty of M&M's and jelly beans in the original pile, even at two per egg. Just thought everyone would get a chuckle out of 'just one more.'

Martin is 7

Martin
Originally uploaded by wellingtonrabbit

The birthday boy was quite taken with his loot. Legos? Tranformers? Some of both! Sure why not, it's a Grand prerogative.

The Grands

A recent stop over for a visit with the grands. As always it was fun albeit TOO brief. M shows off part of his Christmas loot, L takes Lucy for a ride in her new sled. We had about 15 minutes for play time as L & I slept in too long. We cooked french toast and then ventured outside for a test run of the sled which worked very well. Lucy loves it!!

Racing the Deer

It was too tempting. A deer roost just waiting for the marathonettes to check it out. And so we did. Kinda fun sitting in a tree. 

Mini Marathon

Perks for the Marathonettes. We ran together. We finished together. It was AWESOME!!

Welcome to Virginia

Confession: We actually did not run, walk or even jog this far but we did drive the 11 miles of sand road in our trusty Blazer and back again to the land of paved highways.

We'll be running in Virginia soon enough. Big race coming up. 

Another Mascot

We set out to explore the northern beaches and found a herd of wild horses. We hung with them for a good while until time ran out on us.

We'll be back, we promised the young ones some carrots and we need to check out our new friend's foal about to arrive. So pregnant she didn't deign to move but a few feet, she instead posed for our celebrity shot.

To top off our adventure day we saw a Segway tour and a wild turkey chowing down on road kill.

8 miles of exploring, getting ready for the R'nR.

It Was Brutal

Rising tide, a small gale blowing, too many runners with a hard stride digging holes in the sand made this a tough race. But we prevailed. S came in third in her division. I'm not sure whether my right or left leg crossed first but at any rate I beat myself to win 1st place in my division. Our times were a bit slow but considering the struggle we had I feel like we both matched or slightly bested our last 5K. 

Not Again

Yes again.

This time in Donny's car with Mom along for the trip. Almost midway through our ride home from taking in a USA vs Canada women's soccer match, seeing Aj's new house and having dinner with the kips, we hit some trash in the road (as did about five other cars, one which ended up flipped around in the median strip) near Tarboro. Minor visible damage but driving was another matter. So an hour and a half later we get a hitch via AAA. Our boy Bruce gave us some fancy road handling though and we got home around 1AM.

Snowy White

Benefits of an early morning run.

Girls in Glasses

Meet the Marathonettes new mascot, Lydia.

It won't be long before she is a marathoner herself. She bought her sassy new sunglasses at Stop 'n Shop. 

By the Light

Saw you out running the other day, says a running friend waitress to me when D and I were having a long overdue dinner at our favorite restaurant. S was with you, J's wife, she continues.

Right, we're Marathonettes together.

Some other gals were with you too.

Well then you must have seen me walking, S would have been running with P. P and a group of our gal pals we workout with decided to tag along on our jog back to S's home from class. S & P forged ahead, I hung back with the power walkers.

Nope, you were both running, looking pretty good too.

Ah, that day. We were into about mile 15/16 of an 18 mile run. We were pretty tired and were doing some walking in our standard Jeff Galloway run/walk mode. We hear these gals start out for a morning walk somewhere behind us. We're moving at a nice walk pace. They're chatting and walking, typical gal stuff.

We're at the point on our run where a few single words say it all, but actually we've minced even those, we've been quiet for awhile both thinking about tired feet and cool water.

We have to run, I whisper.

I know. They're gaining on us.

Just til they're out of sight.

Yeah, we can't let them pass us.

I know.

Sheez, the things we do in the name of pride.