New York!

Since moving last year, Jeremy & I have had only a few occasions to spend time together without the kids.  I know "they" (whoever the hell "they" is) say "date night" is important, but it just hasn't been feasible.  This has really started to wear on us and Jeremy, being the great guy that he is, decided to intervene.  On October 1st, Jeremy's continuing education requirements re-set (for lack of a better term) and he now has to complete 40 hours over the course of the next 2 years.  It just so happens that there is a conference in New York in a few weeks that will meet a good chunk of those CE requirements.  So, thanks to my in-laws, I'm going along and we are getting a few days away.

I'm really excited, though a bit nervous, too.  I absolutely LOVE Washington, DC and would, honestly, love to live there.  But I really detested Paris (it was a beautiful city, but the people were appalling).  I'm afraid that NYC might be closer to Paris in my eyes than to DC.  We'll see...I figure I'll either love it or hate it, but I doubt I'll be ambivalent towards it.

So, I'm searching for activities that I will enjoy doing on my own during the 3 days of conference that Jeremy is attending.  So far, this is what is on my (solo) docket:  running in Central Park, picking up macarons at Laduree, and buying something at Tiffany's (I'm not coming home without a blue box, damn it).  I'm not a huge shopper, really -- I can usually handle only 2 or 3 hours before I poop out (unless, of course, I have my good friend Erin along, and then I can go for the day and do major damage to the check book).  So that is one of my tasks for the next week (along with about 3 billion other tasks) -- find some activities that I will be happy to take on solo!

Box tops & labels & scissors, oh my!

I can't remember anymore if I mentioned this or not, but I am the Box Tops coordinator for our school this year.  I really am quite pleased to be doing this.  It lets me channel some of my Type A, compulsive & organizational tendencies into something productive.  It is also, however, proving to be a learning experience...learning how the programs work, learning how to communicate clearly and learning how to have reasonable expectations on what I get back from the parents and students.

We did an incentive at our fall festival, which included the students completing collection sheets (sheets designed to have a specific number of labels glued to them) and returning them to me at the festival.  My first lesson learned (and I'm saying this because maybe some other new coordinator will stumble across this and find it helpful) -- collection sheets aren't worth the trouble.  I'd say less than 10% of the sheets are submittable as they stand.  I got expired box tops, Campbell's labels, box top logos that weren't actual box tops (like the little advertisements on the side/top/front of the package that say "this product earns you box tops") and only a handful actually had the correct number glued to them (which is important because you have to submit the box tops in bundles of 50).  I'm not trying to sound ungrateful (or overly pick, but in all honesty, I am a rather picky person) -- it was just a learning experience.  In our case, it would have saved us a lot of volunteer time to have the box tops loose.

I've been working my way through my pile-o-box tops during Saturday football games.  And tonight I spent a good chunk of time learning about the Campbell's Labels for Education program.  This might sound crazy, but it feels good to have a project to do (that isn't for me).  I miss working at times and, as I told one of the PTO moms this week, I am at the point where I either need to find a part-time job or volunteer.  Volunteering is what I would rather do (and the kids feel the same way -- they freak out anytime the idea of me going back to work comes up).

Speaking of work, today marks the 5 year anniversary of me leaving the work force.  I really can't believe it has been that long.  I miss it (a little) every day, but still feel like I am doing the right thing for me.  I guess I think I'd miss what I'm doing now more, if things were reversed.

The mother of all blisters...

...or so I thought.

Yesterday I hit the gym for my favorite class -- TurboKick.  The instructor was a fill in and (as I was warned) was quite intense.  I mean, this woman had me sweating in a way that I thought only a good hard run could get me sweating.  She did FOUR turbos (short intense tracks designed to get your heart rate up really high really fast).  I'm used to doing two.  By the fourth one, I was pretty much in muscle failure.

Jump?  You joke, right?

Punch?  Do you mean wave my arms around like limp noodles?

Kick?  Hun, these toes just are not leaving the ground anytime soon!

About 45 minutes into the class, my big toes really started bugging me.  By the time we finished, I was sure I had two of the biggest blisters ever on both of them, as well as the ball of my foot.  When I got home and removed my shoes from my oh-so-sore feet, I was surprised to find no signs of blistering.  And then I realized that I had actually bruised the soles of my feet.  After icing them, they felt a little better.

Man, those were my good running shoes.  Now I'm thinking they belong on the curb.

Today, because I am a maniac, I hit the gym twice.  Once this morning for yoga (necessary, because I was so stinking sore from Turbo) and then back again for a "bellies and bottoms" class and then an hour on the treadmill.  I had intended to run, but ended up walking slowly -- slower than I ever usually walk, simply because my feet hurt so bad by the end of the class.  I know I should take a day off and let my feet recover and heal, but I am heading to Ohio this weekend and taking 4 days off anyway (because, lets face it, no matter what I plan on doing, I rarely actually run when I am there).  I really do need to do a nice long run tomorrow, but I am dreading how my feet are going to feel.

You know the crazy thing, though?  I actually really enjoyed having that woman beat the heck out of me in gym!

Pure craziness!

Last week was a doozy of a week.  I am continually amazed at the inertia our life has taken on since moving here.  We are just plain busy anymore.

With Lucy in school every morning now, I have started spending more time in Jeremy's office learning about insurance.  I'm dedicating one of my mornings (at least) to office stuff.  Last week I spent two mornings at the school working on the Box Tops for Education program, as I am the school coordinator this year.  I am really enjoying being involved, and I am really loving getting know the other parents, teachers and school staff better.  However, between the office and school, I used up 3 of my 5 mornings.  And then I also took on the project of painting the bathroom at Jeremy's office, so I lost another morning to that (plus Thursday night and a lot of the weekend).  (Note:  Michelle does not like painting public bathrooms.  Jeremy will be hiring that out next time.)  That left me with one morning to clean, do household bills and run errands.  And Jeremy worked 13 days straight up to yesterday.  We are all just tired.

The highlight of the week, however, was parent's night out at our gym. We got together with several other really great couples and had an absolute blast.  Plus, I found a new favorite beer on our outing-- a locally brewed concoction called "Son of a Peach".  I am impatiently counting down the weeks until the next PNO!

And I don't think I've mentioned it, but I've been wanting to run a 1/2 marathon this fall.  I got back into running this summer and was doing really well, until about 6 weeks ago.  I somehow got off my routine, boogered my knee up and essentially had to start back over on my pace and mileage.  I think I'm back on track now.  I haven't actually signed up for a race yet.  I should, as it would give me a definite goal and would force me to take the training up a notch.  I've been trying to balance my workouts very carefully to keep from injuring myself again -- only running every other day, mixing up my runs with long paced runs, interval runs and shorter intense runs.  I've also been trying to get to yoga at least two days a week, as it helps keep me out of the physical therapist's office for my mucked up shoulder.  My 1 mile pace today was 8:56!

So, anyway, that is why I didn't post last week...or take any pictures...or sit down.

The Rest of the Birthday Celebration

So, we spent yesterday and a bit of today celebrating Lucy's birthday.  To make up for the fact that we were having her big dinner and cake today, I took her Krispy Kreme for a treat after school yesterday.

She chose a cotton candy donut.  You can't tell in the picture, but the blue sugar was sparkly, which is why it was chosen.  There were no pink donuts, else I am pretty sure she would have picked one of those.

Lucy did get to help with a little of the cake baking.  She even was kind enough to flip a large portion of the dry ingredients out onto the counter and all over the cookbook.  I may be shaking cocoa powder out of the book for months.

And lookie what Daddy brought for Lucy!

Can you believe that, until yesterday, Lucy had NO dress up clothes?  How can such a girly-girl live without at least one princessy skirt?  And look at those poor little dress up shoes -- Lucy's extra wide feet don't really fit in them.

And finally, what I was looking forward to all day -- CAKE!  I did a yummy chocolate cake with raspberry chambord frosting.  The cake was good, but the frosting was DIVINE!  The swirls are supposed to look like roses.  They mostly look like swirls.  At least icing the cake like this gives you enough frosting per slice to make your pants tight.  After all, frosting is what a cake is all about.  (And bonus trivia -- how many sticks of butter do you think it took to frost that cake?  The answer would be 6 -- a pound and a half of butter!  Just call me Paula.)

And that is the end of the birthday celebrating around here for a while.

Four!

Today is The Girl's (her nickname around here -- Jeremy has always called her "the girl") fourth birthday!  I snapped a few photos before she left for school this morning and she was an accommodating subject.  The Girl loves having her picture taken!

We'll be doing the celebrating tomorrow evening, as Jeremy has to work late tonight.  Lucy & I are going to spend the afternoon baking the cake (though I will decorate it tomorrow morning without her help). 

(This one is my favorite.)

Charleston!

Would you believe me if I told you that it has been two years since we were last to the beach?  One of the draws to Southeast for us was the proximity to the coast, yet we've been so busy with moving, settling into the house and buying a business that getting to the beach has just slipped through the cracks.  The beach is our happy place -- both Jeremy & I agree that we would rather go to the beach for a vacation than just about anywhere else.  This weekend we decided to make a quick trip to Charleston to finally scratch our beach itch!

We ended up staying in a hotel in Charleston and driving out to the beach.  On Saturday we hit Kiawah Island and on Sunday we hit Folly Beach.  Both were really nice, but Kiawah was by far my favorite.  The beach there is the nicest I've seen since we were in Grand Cayman.  It was wide, flat, shallow (the kids could walk out forever without getting into deep water), clean (not a lot of shells, seaweed or other ocean debris to get stuck in your flip flops) and the sand was glittery and gorgeous!  Plus, the beach wasn't too busy (Folly was CRAZY busy).

I took a TON of pictures when we first got there only to discover I had left the memory card in the computer at home (idiot!).  Luckily, I found a spare card in the bottom of the camera bag (good thing I don't clean that sucker out very often).  I also had an awful time with condensation on the lens from being in the cool air conditioned van and hitting the extremely humid air of the beach.  I was so frustrated by the time I solved my camera problems, so I didn't get very many good beach photos!

Ross did something while we were at Kiawah that made me want to dig a big old hole to bury myself in.  Our beach blanket was pretty far up the beach from the water and he started squirming & yelling about having to go to the bathroom.  I told him to go get his dad, who was at the water's edge.  I watched (in horror) and he ran towards Jeremy, but stopped at the pond that Reid had dug, pulled out his, um, business parts and peed in the pond.  I sat on the blanket trying not to laugh hysterically while I (futilely) yelled at him to cease and desist.  Want to know what Jeremy did?  He turned around, saw what was going on and then walked out into the water with a look that clearly said, "that's not my child".

We hit the historic area of Charleston on Sunday afternoon.  It was beautiful, but the kids didn't do very well with it.  They were exhausted from all the beach play, so we didn't really get to see much.  Ross was in such a foul and grumpy mood that we didn't try to do any of the houses or museums, but stuck to the outdoor parks, took a trolley ride and ate plenty of junk food.

I was excited to find macarons in a bakery there, but disgusted to find that, after paying $2 a piece for those suckers, that they were gross -- "not worth the calories gross".  I was pleased on Monday morning to find a second bakery that specialised in macarons, which were very good.  I had wanted to try the macarons in the first place so that I could see what the texture should be like.  I was pleased to discover my macarons held up fairly well texture wise and the flavor of mine is actually better than what I had at even the good bakery.

Ross wowed me with another one of his Rossisms on the way out of Charleston.  We got about half way back to the van, when Jeremy decided to deposit the kids & I on a park bench while he went and retrieved it.  The kids were totally done at this point, so I sat down with them and enjoyed the Jelly Belly's we had picked up.  As we were sitting there talking, this is the conversation I had with him:

Me:  You know, it is really nice of your daddy to go get the van for us.  He is hot, tired and his feet hurt,too.
Ross:  I'm doing him a favor, too.
Me:  Really, Ross, what is that?
Ross:  He's getting to walk to van without listening to our whining, so we did a favor for each other.

Hmmm...really?  REALLY?  Only you, Ross, could be so darn aggravating and cute at the same time!

(The kids enjoying their jelly beans while Ross gives Dad a helping hand.)

(I'm not sure what brought it on, but Jeremy snapped a picture of me, which rarely happens.  I like it because my hair looks good even though it was windblown and humidified beyond belief.)

On a whole, it was a good weekend...hopefully y'all had an enjoyable holiday as well!