It Seems Like Everywhere I Go, the More I See, the Less I Know.

Our new pig, Lubricante is a lush.

Today I'm just posting photos of flowers coming up in my garden and of course, my favorite purchase of the this month. Meet our new metal sculpture pig. I'm calling him Lubricante, since that was written on him. I'm assuming he must have been made from some kind of  lubricant container.

I planted Hollyhocks last year but they never bloomed. Apparently, the deer love them, because they kept eating the tops off of them. The ladies from "Project Green" told me about plant skyyd. You spray it on your plants that deer love on a day when you know it won't rain for at least 24 hours (tricky to find that day this year). It smells horrible - like a five day old period. Yes, that gross. I'm sure it's why the deer don't like it. It smells like a brutal death. Anyway, it works wonders and I was able to have holly hocks this year. So, bring on the brutal death scent!

One thing I read about holly hocks is back in the day before indoor plumbing, it was considered indiscreet for a lady to ask where the outhouse was. Since holly hocks are so tall and easy to see, people would plant a bunch of them by the outhouse, and ladies would just look for them to find out where to take care of their business. Handy.

My cone flowers are  starting to bloom now too...And to take over the entire world. If you know anyone who wants any native to Iowa prairie plants, let me know. I have soooo many to spare.

I love these guys. I plant them every year, because they're so fun. They're called Gazania Big Kiss White Flame. Hell, I'd buy it just for the name.

This lovely orange flower is called a Pot Marigold (duuuude) or a Calendula. It is supposedly edible (double duuuude), medicinal and helps with pest control. I got this plant from my friend, Kathy. I grow seedlings and always have more than I can use, so I offer up some to friends who garden. I'm not asking for anything in return, I just like to share stuff with people, but some of my friends feel the need to trade me for something. Kathy gave me some of her seedlings: red kale, pot marigold and a night blooming tobacco plant. All of which have turned out to be pretty cool. The night blooming tobacco has yet to bloom, but I can't wait until it does.

Okay. So, that was a look at some of my recently blooming flowers. I'll put in another installment for the later Summer blooming flowers. I can't wait for them!

Here it is the Groove Slightly Transformed. Just a Bit of a Break from the Norm.

Since I haven't written in forever and it's almost the end of June already, I thought I might get all crazy and write my traveling through books post for the month of May. Got it? Okay.

I read eight books in the month of May.

1.) The first book I traveled with was Jane Austen's "Persuasion". What a great trip it was. I always thought that "Pride and Prejudice" was going to be my favorite Jane Austen novel, but I think now I love "Persuasion" even more. It was another lovely trip to England in Jane Austen's world.

2.) "A Horse Walks into a Bar", by David Grossman was my second trip of the month and it wasn't all that great. The premise was that a comedian invites an old acquaintance to his stand-up act in Israel. The novel takes place during his act, which was an interesting concept, but it seemed to go on and on and on and on...So, it just dragged a little for me. I did like reading a novel that took place in Israel. I haven't gone on very many book journeys there before.

3.) The third trip I took was through a suggestion from my brother. It was a non-fiction book about a woman who grew up with fundamentalist Mormon parents who didn't really educate her and were super messed-up and abusive. "Educated" by TaraWestover was really engaging. She basically educated herself in spite of how her parents raised her. Her parents are now saying that the book is untrue, but of course they don't want people to think they're abusive. My aunt once said that if any of us wrote a book about her like "Mommy Dearest" she would be furious. That's how you know when people are abusive. It wouldn't even occur to me to worry about my kids writing a book about me saying I was abusive. I might have to worry about them writing a book about how spacey I am or how loud and embarrassing I can be, though...

4.) I went to my favorite places on my fourth book adventure - San Francisco in the 1980's in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City # 5, "Significant Others". It mostly took place closer to the Russian River at a womyn's music festival and old rich guy lodge retreat. It was full of wacky hijinks and perfect for light, Summer reading.

5.) My fifth book trip in May was "What We Lose", by Zinzi Clemmons. It was an artistic look at a woman dealing with her South African mother's death and how she herself fit into the world. It was sad and beautiful all at the same time.

6.) "Washington Black" by Esi Edugyan was one of my favorite journeys this month. It took place in the early/mid 1800's on Barbados. It was the story about a slave who's master lends him out to his brother and after a series of unfortunate events, the master's brother and the slave flee in a hot air balloon kind of thingy. Washington Black ends up traveling all over and his artistic skills and deep intelligence helps him rise above his circumstances. This kind of adventure novel is my favorite type of Summer reading.

7.) I decided to read the last of the original "Tales of the City" books by Armistead Maupin. "Sure of You" took place in San Francisco and Greece in 1988. I wanted to finish the original 6 books in the series before the Netflix series came out. I did really enjoy all of the books. I guess there are three more books written later that I will try to get to as well.

8.) I finished May by reading "A Spool of Blue Thread" by Anne Tyler. Strangely enough, I've never read anything by her before and I really enjoyed it. It took place in Baltimore during the course of a few generations of a family. It was not big drama, but I liked its quiet pace and the look at the things  children never find out about their parents.

I've been much better about choosing more appropriate books for Summer reading this year. I hope you all are finding great adventures in books as well.

Where is My Mind? Way Out in the Water. See it Swimmin'.

My, but it's been a while since I've written on the old blog. We're insanely busy at work and we've had a ton of shit going on at home too.

Sooooo, I'm going to try to write two, count 'em, two race reports today. We'll see how far I get.

The first race report will be about the Pigman Triathlon. The week before the event, I was dealing with a little anxiety. I haven't had many problems before, but the last year or so, I've noticed a mild anxious episode or two. I'm just going to go ahead and blame it on perimenopause, because that's handy. Anyway, I was feeling anxious for about a week before the race and I woke up that Sunday with a mild migraine. Double whammy.

I decided to try and do the triathlon anyway to make up for last year. As you'll recall, I had a bad cold last year and the water was really choppy and also, I gained quite a bit of weight over the Winter so my wet suit was too tight and there wasn't much room for my lungs to expand. I couldn't breathe very well during the open water swim and panic ensued.  I ended up giving up and climbing onto the boat, ending my triathlon before it had really started. I didn't want to do that again this year.

I worked with John and a woman named Lanney on open water swimming a few days before the triathlon. I also bought a new, larger wet suit top. Of course, the morning I woke up at 4 am the day of the triathlon I had a little migraine. It wasn't horrible, but I forgot to bring Advil with me and when I went to take a couple before the start of the race, I realized it wasn't there and lost it. I told John that I just needed a minute and I sat in the car and had my little meltdown. After that, I pulled myself back together'ish and got ready for my race.

I decided the best way to keep me from panicking was to just go slow in the swim. I wouldn't let myself worry about how much faster everyone else was going or if they were all passing me. I just did the slow and steady thing and just kept swimming. I was exhausted when I finally made it out of the water and felt like I had a little asthma. It felt like there was water in my lungs when I breathed. So, I walked up the hill instead of running like most of the other women I was competing against. I'm usually strongest on the bike, and I got to pass a lot of people, who were way ahead of me in the swim. The run was slower again for me. That's the area where I really feel the extra weight I'm carrying. It try not to worry about it. I'm in my 50's, I'm probably not going to all of the sudden lose a bunch of weight in any healthy way, so I go more slowly in my amateur old lady category race. I'm sure it won't kill me.

Since I was the oldest in my category, you'd be surprised that I actually got third. Part of that is that there are a few really strong women in the next age group, so next year when I move up, my results won't be so great, but that's okay. I finally won a pig after all these years! I'll take it. The biggest thing for me, is that I fought my anxiety/insecurity demons and won this time. That was the biggest prize for me.

The next race we did was three days after the triathlon. It was the second installment of our Time Trial series. I've been working hard at Time Trialing this year. Last month, I was 5 seconds faster than my fastest time the year before. My goal was to be under 30 minutes and I went 29.44. So, this time my goal was to be under 29 minutes. Since the month before, I didn't go as hard as I should've, and I had been pretty good at training, I didn't think that would be too hard.

I made a point to try and focus as hard as I could for the full ten miles, which is hard for me. I also tried to use everything I had left to go up the last hill. It turns out, I finished in 28.30 minutes. I beat my best time by a minute and 14 seconds. I also beat my other goal of averaging 21 mph. I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn't think that time was all that fast, but that's okay. I am always trying to do better than I've done before, no matter how fast anyone else can go.

Once again, I'll keep trying to write on here more...So many things to work on.