Me, Tiff and Natalie...my crazy running girls.
That look on our faces is "it's 21 degrees and we are shivering
and not trained enough. Let's GO already!"

The first race of my 4 half-marathons in a month was Saturday. In spite of the 4:30am wake-up call, the hour and half drive (with stops) to get to the race, and the 21 degree temperature at the start. I couldn't feel my fingers or toes for about the first 2 miles.

What I could feel was my belly. For the second time in a dozen races, I had to pull a pit stop at mile 3. I am oddly proud of this fact because I no longer have some of the inner pipes that most people do and digestion can be a challenge on a regular day. Most runners deal with "emergencies," waiting anxiously in line at port-a-potties along the route, dancing from foot to foot battling an urgent inner turmoil that could end with some serious embarrassment, and an equally urgent desire to be back pounding down the course chasing all the people who passed them while they were waiting. Anyhow, it goes without saying that joining that line was a "bummer." I never really recovered after that and the run was a slog. A beautiful slog.

I really thought this was going to be the perfect carb-loading,
belly-friendly, pre-race meal. It was delicious and easy to make.
The results were not so great. I do not blame the turkey tetrazzini.

Running is funny. You spend so much time in your head, having a conversation with yourself about everything - life and death, inspiration, going faster, not quitting, not stopping. That ache in your right hamstring, that hill you're going to have get over, a lovely old barn that makes you want to stop and take a picture because it reminds you of Girl Scout camp. Why can't people decide which side of the road to run on? How come people are tent camping when it's this cold? How come that woman is snorting and grunting like a pig? How anyone could run in shorts in these temperatures? Realizing your half-assed-I'm-busy-excuses training program was, as always, insufficient so you start making deals with yourself about how you'll do it better this time, starting tomorrow. The to-do list for the day, the month, for your life is flying through your brain like an old-fashioned stock ticker-tape and then it's completely erased by the sight of three horses galloping through a field, breath misting from their nostrils, a glassy lake, barren trees and snow-covered mountains serving as a postcard-perfect background and you think you know what life is all about.

For the first six miles you think you're going to PR (get a personal record), for the last 7 you're wondering why the fuck you even got out of bed this morning for this insanity and if that one, lone cheerleader on the road might give you a lift to the finish line.

And that's life, isn't it? Maybe that's why we do it. Because you get out of bed, when it would be easier to pull the covers around your head and hit snooze, to get on the roller coaster. That up and down, wild journey where pain meet beauty. Where your weakness meets your strength. Where your perfect inspired dream-life meets the have-to's of every day life. Where you get to talk to you for a couple of uninterrupted hours and figure out some things about life, and yourself. Where you know that, no matter what, you have friends who are with you for different parts of the ride, getting your butt out of bed, shouting encouragement along the way, walking by your side when you need them, and cheering for you when you cross the finish line...always thinking you are an amazing, powerful woman.

For a little race of 600 people, this run was so
professionally run. Water, bathrooms, transportation, medals,
breakfast at the end. Very impressed by Striders Winter Racing Circuit!

And at the end of 13.1 miles (don't discount that last tenth...it's a bitch), you get a medal. It doesn't matter if you ran your best race or your worst. All that matters is that finished. And hopefully you had fun doing it. I know I did.

the principal's office

Tagg has been in pre-school for about 6 months and we already had our first visit to the principal's office. Well they don't really have a principal at our pre-school but the experience is the same. Here's how it went down...

I pick Tagg up from school and ask how his day was. "Good!" he pipes up from the car seat.

"What did you do today?"

"We were hitting and kicking and punching Bobby," he boasts, in his sweet little chirpy voice.

"You did WHAT?!?!"

And he kindly repeated it for me. Thank goodness he doesn't get the concept of lying yet. I immediately picked up the phone and called the school and sure enough, they thought we should come in for a "talk." Apparently there are four boys in his class who are having some kind of Lord of the Flies moment where they take turns beating the snot out of each other and playing king of the class. One, the little kid, has resorted to biting, which has his parents completely freaked out and desperate. And here's my little hellion, in desperate need of...something. On the flip side, I was strangely happy that it wasn't just him beating up other kids. I mean, at least he's not a bully. Yet.

So how do we change the direction? Well, first of all, we think he's bored and is acting out to get attention. In about a year and a half, he went from being the only child, and then one of two kids with someone dedicated to his every need, thought or question, to one of a dozen little people all trying to figure out their place in the world. And he's really wicked smart. When the class is learning that "red means stop," he knows that a stop sign is a hexagon and stop is spelled s-t-o-p. So we put him in some special programs at school that give him a little more challenge and personal attention. But what else?

Stickers. Yep. Stickers is what we came up with. (Bear in mind, I am beginning to loathe stickers. They are everywhere, on everything. Like mold or fleas. But they work.) We call it the "nice project" and he gets rewarded with a sticker every time he does something kind. The end game reward is Star Wars Legos (yes, I understand that these are the same devil as stickers, but worse because you step on them and they clog up the vacuum and they're just generally awful). I have never seen a kid more motivated to get stickers, and Star Wars, and legos.

No matter what, hopefully, the exercise is teaching him the value of being sweet, listening and helping. Fingers crossed.

run, run, run

I have not been running as much as I want to, or should be. I've let myself get swallowed up by work and life and excuses and the miles have drifted away while the pounds pile on. I promised myself that it's time to get back on track so I knocked out an 8-miler on Saturday and felt pretty good about it. Which is a good thing.

I've set myself a new, impossible, crazy goal. I'm going to run four half-marathons in a month. I didn't start out planning this, believe me. The Salt Lake Half Marathon, which I've done three times, was in trouble. Lots of management and financial issues and people weren't sure it was going to happen. That one is April 21st. I have some friends who are doing it for the first time so I finally signed up. But just in case it didn't happen...

I signed up for one on April 7th, in Heber, which is near one of my Ragnar runs. It's called Striders and it's small. But then I started thinking, hmmm...Utah, mountains, April...snow. I do not want to do 13 miles in the snow. And it's only 45 bucks so....

I signed up for the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon on April 28th. I heard it was a good one and the odds of snow are slim. Plus, one of my Ragnar friends decided to do it with me so I'm now committed. Or triple-committed. But at this point I'm still thinking I'm probably only going to do one of the three. And then...

My friend Carrie gets a Groupon for half-price off another half-marathon on Cinco de Mayo. It's in Provo which is normally a serious deterrent to me (they have like one Starbucks in Provo, no tequila and tend to frown on tank tops and swearing) but she really, really wants me to sign up. What can I say? It's HALF-PRICE! Like 30 bucks. And I've already signed up for three halves that I'm mildly trained for. So, I'm in.

And then I think, HEY! If I run all four (A) I'll be better trained than I've ever been for most of the half-marathons I've run, (B) I'll be burning some serious calories for swimsuit season, (C) it's good training for Ragnar, and (D) I'll be able to say I ran four half marathons in a month! That's not too shabby.

Let the running begin. I'm going 4 for 4!

green thumbs & spray guns

We started another gardening project this year, buoyed by last year's mild success with a few peppers and some basil. I'm in the mood for fresh herbs and veggies that don't cost a fortune and the kids are in the mood for...dirt. We went seed shopping a few weeks ago and Tagg and Sloane picked most of them out, including corn (where in the hell are we going to plant corn?!) and peppers and pumpkins. Yep. Pumpkins. "Giant" pumpkins. That should be interesting.

So we started a bunch of seeds in these little planters. It was dirty business, but we got them planted. And nearly drowned a few in the process. My kids love to pour water on stuff!

And a few weeks later, we have little sprouts! Tagg shuffled all the name tags so it will be a guessing game to figure out what's what, but wow! We're growing stuff!

We had to move our gardening project inside this week due to a cold spell. 80 on Saturday, snowing on Sunday. Not so good for our little seedlings. I say this like I know anything about gardening, which I do not. But it sounds good, so now the little plants are living on our dining room table, all nice and toasty.

You have never seen anyone who loves to water plants as much as Tagg does. It might be the squirt bottle. Okay, it's definitely the squirt bottle. At least for once it's aimed at something productive, as opposed to my mirror, shoes, bed, his sister, the dog, the DVD player...

He is pretty proud of his green thumb. He likes to point out each new little sprout as it pops up and we talk about the differences between the way they look and how fast they grow. But they all need water. That much he knows! Sloane is still just fascinated by the dirt which does not bode well for the plants. Last year, she would pick every tomato, strawberry and pepper she could and start eating them right off the vine. At least she enjoyed our limited crop!

Plant-watering is serious business in our house. You have to FOCUS.

So we may be a little ahead of the planting season, but we've got a long journey to turn these little seeds into a bountiful crop. From a planter. Like I said, serious business.

it's saturday...where is my cape?

Saturdays are fun, chaotic, hilarious, exhausting...and they certainly require a little "super mom" at times. Scott works Saturdays so it's me and the kids, all day, left to our own devices. MWAHAHAA! (that's my evil laugh)

First things first. My sister and I go for a long run, about 8 miles. Sounds impressive to some, but this was the first time I had run since last Saturday and it felt like all uphill and into the wind (it was actually really windy, but it might have seemed worse in my head). But we did it!

Looking awesome, smelling fabulous and with a face that most deer would love to get a crack at (get the salt lick reference?), we head to the grocery store and then to the park for a little play time.

Then it's off to lunch. Special treat (because all the groceries are in the back of the Tahoe)...Chik-Fil-A! It is, by now, waaaaaay past nap time so we rush back to the house and put Sloane down for a nap while I rock out some dishes, laundry, clean up, and put the groceries away. Tagg is patiently playing with his Star Wars sticker book, hanging on to the thread of hope that we can do some crafts while Sloane is sleeping.

Sorry, dude. No dice. She's not sleeping today, apparently. (WHY?! Whyyyyy?! I would kill for a nap right now! How about I sleep and YOU do the dishes? Huh?) So we start our craft project together, two against one. And paint is the weapon of choice. I am in trouble. Oh, and did I mention there's a salad spinner involved? Danger!

I actually bought my first salad spinner for this cute craft idea I found on Pinterest.
Love that site for crafts! But a little worried that my salad spinner
will never spin actual salad after this.

It took us awhile to get the hang of it but once we did, it was pretty fun. Of course, Sloane managed to dump one bowl of paint over and paint her leg and face blue while we figured it out but nothing hit the counters so all good.

The inside of the salad spinner was actually really lovely
when we were done. Kind of hippie, tie-dye. I wanted to keep it like this,
but I also want to spin salad some day. Not sure why.

And the little paper eggs were beautiful. I have no idea what to do with them now but they're really cute!

The final product!

After that, we decided that since we were already a mess with paint, we might as well try some other projects that involve paint. And mess. So we painted Easter and spring cards, made thumbprint chicks, and then made purple handprints for a future project. We only dumped paint - full bottles of paint, mind you - on the floor twice and then had a clap fest with our purple-painted hands which splattered me and the entire kitchen with paint. Needless to say, tubby time for the kids came early on Saturday. (for the record, I still have not showered at this point...ick)

Oh yeah. We got some craftin' goin' on in here!

And, because the day is still young, I power showered, got the kids cleaned up and into the 3rd outfit of the day and off we went to Target to get a few things.

Sloane tried out her new sticker book.
One on her head, 15 on the rest of her.

Tagg's awesome shopping outfit, snow boots and shorts.
I had no input on this. And he does not have an ATM card.

And then we went home, made dinner, and I think people maybe watched a movie. I was snoring on the couch by 10pm, dreaming of paint and Easter eggs and spinning salads. In my cape.

creativity...

...is a renewable resource.

At least that's what Biz Stone, one of the Twitter founders said today during a discussion at the @Adobe Digital Marketing Summit. That really hit home with me. I've been feeling a little "funk" the last little bit. Not wanting to write. Not feeling like telling a story. Not seeing the beauty and inspiration in my world. 

But today, the sun was out. The breeze was warm. I got hair-buzzed by a couple of birds in a little "love" flight while sitting on the patio at Cafe Molisse, sipping wine and chatting about life and love and the future...and hope...with two of my besties.

It was a re-set day for me. A day when the inspiration of the last few days gave me focus. Where random conversations with new people in my life put a little fire under my aspirations. I may not be writing my novel in a McDonalds, but I am writing again. And I feel...renewed.

the good life

A spring snowstorm. A cozy fire. A sweet old dog soaking up the toasty warmth before one of her many daily naps. Kind of makes me jealous. Of a dog.