11 Answers

I was tagged, but am not going to follow all of the rules.  I'm not going to tell you 11 random things about me, I'm not going to post any rules, and I'm not going to tag 11 more people.  I will answer Christa's questions though:

1. Do you prefer sweet or salty?  Sweet, but I really prefer a combo of both, like Flipz.

2. Do you make your bed everyday?  No, but I did make it today.

3. What is your dream job?  I'd love to be some kind of book reviewer and get paid to read.

4. Do you wash your workout clothes after every workout? If they're sweaty, yes, if not, I try to get two days out of them.

5. What is the oldest thing you have in your wardrobe that you still wear and how old is is?  I have some Adidas shorts I had in high school.  

6.  Do you use LOL?  I don't think I ever have.  I :) a lot though.

7.  Do you think talking on the phone in the grocery store is rude?  No.  Is it?

8.  What do you think about not allowing headphones to be worn during races?  I've only run one 5k and had a friend to talk to the whole way, so I don't have an opinion on that one.

9. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?  Would you stay where you are?  I'd love to live in a warmer climate, but I don't think I could leave my extended family, so I guess I'm in VT forever.

10. Do you like to sign up for giveaways on blogs?  I signed up once.  I won once.  

11. What food could you never give up?  I think if I had to give something up for a good reason, I could give up anything.

Just another Friday

I was looking forward to book club tonight, a late night out with the girls, with JD putting the kiddos to bed long before I got home.  I actually finished the book this time-When She Woke by Hillary Jordan.  It's definitely a discussion starter, and I anticipated actually discussing the book for longer than 10 minutes this time.  Sadly, our hostess is close to losing a family member, so as a result, book club was postponed.

With no back up plan, I decided to just stay home with the crew.  I'm on a no-spending spree as of today, so the safest place for me is home.  Tomorrow's plans to go rock climbing were also postponed due to one of the would-be climber's cracked ribs, and again, the no-spending spree.  Instead, our friends are coming here for dinner, which means I have a reason to clean my house.  For some reason, our master bath and bedroom are always the last to get any attention.  It's too easy to just shut the door and let people wonder what state those rooms are in.  I'm embarrassed to say that they're usually pretty bad.  For that reason, I started there with my cleaning.  Now I just need to figure out a way to keep them that way.

Before the cleaning binge began, JD and I took the crew for a walk in the woods behind our house.  Quin didn't necessarily enjoy the ride in the Ergo, but it's so much easier than trying to carry him, and it was way to slushy/cold for him to walk.

Twice a year, we have to haul out Brodie's old kennel due to a little issue that JD and I refer to as "puppy period."  The kennel was hauled out today and Quin enjoyed playing in it (no grossness in it, I promise).

The big kids asked to sleep downstairs, and since it isn't a school night, and I didn't have a good reason not to let them, it was okayed.

Oh, and I did finish Week 4 of C25K.  Onto Week 5 tomorrow!

No more excuses

I've decided to stop making excuses for why I'm not running, or doing anything physically active, for that matter. This little poster that I saw might have pushed me a little:

Yeah, that's probably true.

And that is true, too.  Personalized for me, the poster should say, "THE HARDEST STEP FOR A WANNABE RUNNER IS THE FIRST ONE ONTO THE TREADMILL DREADMILL."

So, excuses aside, I got on the treadmill Sunday night about 9 p.m. when I really just wanted to go to bed and get my necessary minimum of 8 hours of sleep before starting the work week.  I started week 4 of the nine week Couch to 5K plan that I successfully completed last year before giving up running.  On Tuesday, I forced myself to get out of bed earlier than the latest-possible-moment and did the second day of week 4.  My plan is to do the early mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I can leave later for school on these days because my sister comes right to the house to watch Quin) and find time to run once on the weekends.

Goal:  Finish the C25K program and then keep it up so that I can run a 5k whenever I desire.

Our Great (one day) Escape

For Christmas, my mom gave us a night at the Great Escape Lodge indoor water park.  What a blast!  We went on a Friday afternoon and stayed until Saturday.  Everyone had a great time and it was the perfect little getaway!

"The Best Christmas Ever"

My six year old, Zeke, had three things on his Christmas list:  a watch, a wallet, and an alarm clock.  Easy kid.  He didn't care what kind of the afore mentioned items he got either.  We went with a basic clock radio from Wal-Mart, a kid size digital watch from Target, and a Cars wallet from ebay.  After opening his gifts (there were a few other small things in his stocking), he exclaimed that it was the best Christmas ever.  If only we were all happy with the simple things in life!

I enjoyed the holidays as well.  Zeke and Ryley were part of our school Christmas program which proclaimed the true meaning of Christmas.  I had almost two weeks off from school.  My family was all together, including my brother in Ohio and his newborn son whom we hadn't met yet.  We met another new nephew when we got together with JD's family.  I love Christmas and being with family!

Florida Road Trip

I kept no journal, I wrote nothing down, I took very few pictures, but I'm going to try to write about what I remember about our road trip to Florida two months ago.  I should probably just link to Christa's blog and her posts about it or at least read them again to jog my memory, but I've decided to just wing it.

Road Trip members:  JD, Me, Christa, and Travey (notice the lack of children!)

I have taken exactly one road trip to Florida before this one.  I was 7 (but 8 on the way home).  I was with my parents and my siblings (just two brothers at the time) and we were driving a little red two-door Ford Thunderbird.  It only had two seatbelts in the back seat and my dad had installed a third so that we could drive legally.  (We found out after the trip that his license had been expired the entire trip.)  I don't remember much about the ride, except that my brothers and I fought over who got to sit in the "middle."  I'm not completely sure why we fought about it; it was a hump and not very comfortable as it wasn't intended to be a seat.  I think it was that we could see out the front window from there.  We took about three days to get there.  We stayed at my aunt and uncle's home and I celebrated my birthday there with my cousin whose birthday was just two days before mine.  We went to Disney and Sea World.  We drove home.  Every other time I've been to Florida, it has been by way of an airplane.

We decided to drive this time due to the cost of tickets, the flexibility of travel, and the cost of a car rental.  We weren't taking the kids, so screaming one-year-olds and whiny school-age children weren't part of the equation.  Four adults that get along well- we figured we could handle it.

We left Vermont at about 4 a.m. Saturday morning (after a scramble to finish sub plans Friday night, figure out why my car battery was dead, and do all of my packing) after very little sleep.  We picked up Christa and Travey and all of their luggage (another advantage to not flying- bring as much as you want!).  We drove straight through to Florida with only two stops that were for something other than gas- an hour long rest stop when we spotted a Cabela's store in Pennsylvania and a sit down dinner somewhere in the Carolinas.  By about 7:30 a.m., we were at our destination of Ft. Myers, Florida.

We napped and headed over to Sanibel Island for the afternoon.  The next few days in Ft. Myers included shopping, the beach, reading, pedicures, swimming in the pool just outside of the condo (my mom and her husband's), Monopoly, and just enjoying the freedom of being childless.  On Wednesday, we went on an airboat ride in Everglades City and then went over to Ft. Lauderdale and stayed with my aunt and uncle for the next couple of days.  We walked to the beach, went on a boat ride with my uncle on the inter coastal and a bit of the Atlantic, had a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner, and headed back home on Friday.  We spent the night in North Carolina and finished the drive on Saturday.  While the long drive was bearable, it took up several days of our vacation time, so I'm pretty sure that next time we'll pay the extra money and fly!

Two Months Later

I've taken a break from blogging.  Obviously.  It's one of those things that the longer you're away from, the harder it is to get back to it.  I'm trying to get back to it.  I'm not going to make promises that I'll blog a certain number of times per week because I'm pretty good at breaking promises that I make with myself.  I am going to try to be better about it though, just as I'm trying to be better about a lot of things this year.  I didn't make any resolutions for 2012, but I do have an overarching goal to be better.  To be a better mom, wife, teacher, blogger, friend, etc. 

I do hope to catch up on some of the big things that have happened over the past couple of months with little posts and pictures.  Coming soon (hopefully):  Road Trip to Florida, "The Best Christmas Ever", & Our Great (one day) Escape.