Funny

Here's an email I got from Sam's 2nd grade teacher today:

I just had to share what your son said in reading group!! I am still laughing—we were reading a book about manatees—and how their blubber keeps them warm-then how they eat 15% of body weight and we figured out the math—and then I said what if you ate 15% of your body weight and figured some of theirs out—then Sam Says, “ My mom runs so she doesn’t get fat” LOL

Taking Care of Business

Yesterday I went with Maria and the rest of the 6th graders to the field trip to "Biztown."  Basically, its a pretend town where they assign each child a job, and then the town runs based on these jobs for an entire day.  The kids have checkbooks, get paychecks, have to apply for bank loans, buy goods, etc.  The "town" is set up in an old school building in downtown Columbus, and each "business" had its own room and sign.  The kids had already been assigned their jobs and had been working on their checkbooks and knew their job descriptions.  Maria was chosen as Mayor of Biztown, and got to give a speech to the rest of the town at the beginning of the day.  It was really cute to watch the kids take charge and act like adults.

The parents who went were assigned to "help" in whatever particular shop their child was in.  Since Maria was in City Hall, I was there to help along with two Dads.  There were only 6 kids in City Hall, so needless to say, our kids had plenty of help.  Although they didn't really need us much, since the kids had been working on all of this for weeks and we had just been thrown in the mix yesterday with a confusing half hour orientation, I'm not sure we were really needed much at all.

It was a fun day, and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves.  Maria worked so hard, and it was so hot in City Hall (it was 70 degrees outside but the boiler heat on this old building was on full blast) that I thought for sure she would take a nap when we got home - she was so tired.  But she just rested for a couple of hours before we went to her Middle School Student Council bowling night last night.

Kinsale St. Patrick's Day 4-Miler

Yesterday I ran my first 4 mile race.  I've done several 5K races now, but wanted to try something else, and wasn't thrilled about doing a 10K just yet.  Ben and the Smiths ran in a 4-miler on Thanksgiving day, but I wasn't willing to give up preparing the Thanksgiving meal with Maria that morning in order to run.  So this was my next chance.

I have been running on the treadmill 5-6 times per week since the new year (although I am more motivated to lose weight than to improve my pace).  Most runs are around 3 miles, but on Sunday mornings (when I have more time) I usually go 4 or 5 miles.  I was unsure of my actual pace since neither the treadmill nor the Nike+ is extremely accurate.  I had planned to run outside at least once before the race and use Ben's Garmin to give me an accurate pace, but the weather was horrible, and then once it got a little better, I had to stay home to wait for people to come work on the basement most days in the last two weeks.  But even though I was uncertain of my actual pace, my goal was to beat 40 minutes (which is a pace of 10 min/mile).  Not very fast for real runner, but it would be my personal best in any race.

The weather was 55 degrees for this 6:00 p.m. race, but very windy - 30 mph according to the weather service.  But still pretty good racing weather given that it's the middle of March.  We made it an evening and went with the Smiths, who both ran as well.  Lisa and I started off just behind the 10 min/mile pacer balloons, but I felt so good that I passed the pacers in the first half mile.  Lisa, who is still getting over a sinus infection, did not run her fastest race and so we didn't stick together for long.  The majority of the race was on the cart paths of the golf course at the Kinsale Country Club (in Powell), and when we were on the course there was hardly any wind (which did make things a little hotter since I had dressed for the wind).  I've never run in a race with this may people before (1000 were registered), and so running on the cart paths made things a little bit crowded.  I think there were times in the last mile where I would have walked, except then I would have been in other people's way, so I kept running (sometimes peer pressure is good).  I definitely have never felt this beat at the end of a race.   In the third mile the pacer balloon passed me, but I kept it in my sights and did not let up.  When we could see the finish line, Andy Smith was there to cheer me on (Ben was waiting to take pictures at the finish line), and I was able to pass the pacers by several strides before crossing the finish line.  I felt awful, and really thought I would throw up during that last half mile.  I gave it everything I had, and was so disappointed when I crossed the finish line and it said 40'13", meaning I did not meet my goal.  My Nike+ quit on me after 1.77 miles (typical).  It wasn't until several minutes later that Ben reminded me that the clock starts as the first racers cross the start line, and Lisa and I were in the middle of the pack, and probably didn't cross until at least 30 seconds into the race.  Which meant that I most likely achieved my goal, but I wasn't certain until final results were posted on their website last  night.  I finished in 39'24", an average pace of 9'51" per mile, which was well under my goal.  I came in 226th out of 475 women. 

Ben had a good race but was purposely taking it easy since he has 20 miles to run today as part of his marathon training (he finished in 28"09").  Andy had a personal best at 27'49", and Lisa had a tougher race between her cold and not having run much in the last few months, but she finished.  After the race, there was a tent party at the golf course, featuring The Menus, and band we have heard of but have never heard before.  The four of us went to restaurant for dinner (instead of eating "Irish" concession stand food at the race), and then went back to hear the band - and the hype was true - they were pretty awesome.  We left at 9:30 and got home by 10:00, where both kids were asleep on the couches (Paige was here but they begged to stay up until we got home).

All in all, a great night and I am so thrilled that I had my most successful race to date. 

Now, I can focus entirely on the cruise.  I've quickly gone from "I can't believe we leave in less than two weeks," to "We leave in less than two weeks and I have so much to do!"

Good Day for Maria

Yesterday was a big day for Maria.  In the morning, she participated in the YMCA's indoor triathlon.  As you can tell from the results, not very many kids participated.  Regardless, Maria did very well.  The kids swam laps for 10 minutes, biked on a stationary bike for 20 minutes, and ran on a treadmill for 15 minutes.  Then they added up total mileage to compete.  As you can tell, Maria got edged by .02 seconds to come in 2nd place for the girls.  Swimming is usually her weak point at these triathlons because she doesn't have a pool to train in.  But she still did very well.  She came in 17th out of 22 total participants - adults and kids, and beat out two women!

Maria also had a good afternoon - she won the election for her 4-H club's "Historian."  The club has over 60 people in it, so its a pretty big election as far as clubs go.  She was running against two older girls but spoke so clearly and confidently when they gave their one minute speeches that she came off looking much better than the other two candidates.  I should also mention she winged her speech - she gave it some thought, but wrote nothing down ahead of time (just like Ben always does).  So her job consists of taking pictures and scrap-booking all events for the club. Luckily, she runs a committee of 10 people, because with a club of 60+ people who all show something at the fair, it will be impossible for her to get pictures of everyone.  I do think she and I will be spending quite a bit more time at the fair this year, though, because she is going to need to go to more events.  The club adviser told Maria that this committee fell apart last year (meaning they have no good scrapbook), so she's hoping Maria steps up and does a good job.  I'm confident that she will.

Bad Week

Almost exactly a year ago, our basement finishing project was complete, and we spent many evenings down there arranging our furniture and belongings into our new, awesome space.  Last week, with lots of melting snow and almost 2 inches of rain, we spent a few stressful hours removing all of those belongings as water flowed freely into our beloved awesome space.  This wouldn't be as surprising if we hadn't taken expensive steps to ensure this wouldn't happen.  Two years ago, we had new darinage tile put in from our sump hole area all the way out to the field behind out house.  Last year we put in two new, heavy duty sump pumps, and then had a self-start generator wired so if the electricity went out, the pumps would still work.  And we had a heavy rain storm last summer when the entire system worked exactly as planned, so we really thought even though we were getting tons of rain last Sunday night, we would be safe.

But we weren't.  Best as we can tell (and an electrician is coming tomorrow to confirm), both sump pumps were wired to the same cicruit, and when both pumps had to run for a prolonged period of time, the circuit breaker switched off and both pumps stopped (shouldn't the electrician wiring them have known this might happen?).  But it was a little while before we figured that out - all we knew was the pumps weren't working and water was flowing into the basment.  Because we watched it happen, we were able to save most belongings and furniture.  The kids helped to bring all of their games and toys upstairs (at 5:30 Monday morning).  In the end, we had 3-4 inches over the entire basement before Ben got the pumps working again (by running extension cords to other outlets in other parts of the house).  Stanley Steamer came and used their "water extraction" equipment and by Thursday all was dry.  The drywall was saved, the carpet was saved, and we only lost the carpet padding and the Wii (which was half-dead anyway).  The fans running in the basement (23 of them on the first night), were annoying and made it difficult to sleep that first night (imagine a jet engine running in your basement), but worth it in the end.  Home insurance is paying for it and have been very easy to work with so far.  The carpet (with new padding) will be re-installed tomorrow, cleaned on Tuesday, and by Wednesday we should be able to start moving back in.  Our contractor from the finishing project is having the original electrician come out to fix whatever the problem was, and then hopefully we will be set.

On top of that, Ben almost broke his foot Thursday when a 150 lb. set of choir risers fell on his foot.  It hurt very badly, and we tried to have it x-rayed but the x-ray person had already left the Dr. office for the day.  The Dr. poked and prodded and didn't think it was broke, but Ben had to take 3 days off from running (he is training for his first marathon in two months).  He was very angry, and he kept it elevated and iced for most of his at home time for two days.  Today he was able to handle a light jog on the treeadmill for over and hour - even though its still tender on top, he could run on it without pain.  So hopefully he is on the road to recovery.

And then there was the passing of Senate Bill 5 last week, which will completely change our careers as teachers, and not for the better.  In fact, if the law stays as is, we can't afford to keep teaching, even if we don't lose our jobs (which could happen much more easily now).  But then there's the problem of not being trained to do anything else.  Oh yeah, and we really do enjoy what we do.  The whole thing just makes us feel that we are completely hated and unappreciated, and I'm sure the police and fire fighters feel that way as well. 

Three weeks from today we'll be on our cruise, and it can't come soon enough.  I don't know if I've ever needed a vacation this badly!