I Love the Passing of Time

Say...This place looks familiar. Didn't I used to have a blog here a long time ago?

So, yeah. Things are going well. I'm reading and watching movies and running and riding my bike and I even did my fist triathlon a couple of weeks ago.

it is Summer here in Iowa and it is green and full of flowers and farm animals and rolling hills and topped off with amazing skies.

...And while I'm filling you in, I should probably tell you the most important news - the cats are just fine, thank you.

Beep Beep M'Beep Beep. Yeah!

Tried to plant some coleus in the front yard for a little more curb appeal.

Sooo, The Guy and I decided to refinance the house and put more money down to get rid of our mortgage insurance and go down to a 15 year mortgage. We met with the mortgage man and got everything okay'ed and locked in at 3%. (holy crap!)

Because we're in our 40's and not in our 20's, we talked about what we would do if, (goddess forbid) we didn't make it as a couple. Since The Guy has put more money into it than me, he would probably buy me out. This is the conversation that followed our meeting with the mortgage man:

Me: So, do you mind waiting a few years to dump me, so we can build up enough equity for me to put down on another house?

The Guy: Well, the reality is, even if we don't break-up, we won't be together forever, because one of us will die first. Do you mind waiting to die after I do, so I don't have to miss you?

Me: We could always die together. In a fiery car crash...

The Guy: That would be great, Let's hope for that...But what about the cats?

 

Don't worry. Archie's only sleeping here.

Me: Let's leave everything to my girls with the condition that they have to take care of the cats until they die.

The Guy: Of course, that will probably mean that Archie will mysteriously get run over by a Stinky teenage girl in one of our cars.


Me: Yeah. Poor Archie doesn't stand a chance after we die in our fiery car crash...

You Have to Learn to Pace Yourself. Pressure.

Things last weekend were crazy busy. It was all good busy, but like The Guy says, "Good or bad, it's still stress".

So, as I was stressing about all that I had to do, The Guy counted up all of my stressful events and we came up with 5.

1. Attend Stinky's graduation on Friday night and subsequent dinner with the family at Village Inn.

 

2. Get up early on Saturday morning, drive to Burlington and race Snake Alley up one of the twistiest, steepest hills I've ever ridden.

3. Come home and get a lesson in canoe racing from my brother.

 

4. Cook and clean and shop and get ready for...

5. Stinky's graduation party on Sunday.

I'm adding a 6, but it was not a stressful thing. It was to relax after all of it. On Monday The Guy had a cold and I woke up with a migraine, so we spent the day, going out for breakfast, coming home and napping, going for a bike ride, then going out for lunch then, coming home and napping and then going to a little party at our friends. Ahhhhhhh!

No More Teacher's Dirty Looks

This is the youngest on her very last day of high school, ever. So weird, but good. After 20 years of being a mom, I'm okay with my role changing. Stinky hasn't decided if she will live at home with us or not, but even if she does, I told her that my chauffeuring and chef days are over. Sure, I will give her rides from time to time and if she is home at the same time I'm making dinner and wants to eat what I'm making, she's welcome to it, but part of growing up and being independent is doing all of that stuff for yourself. I think she's more than ready, Lord knows, I am.

But It's All Right Now, I Learned My Lesson Well.

Thanks to Brando, for writing a comment haiku that ended with "Mommy needs a drink". Brilliant work!

one of my co-workers today told me that she was writing to a friend about her party and couldn't remember how to spell soiree. She looked up by Googling, "swaray" (she's from Southeast Iowa. She can't help it), and this is what she landed on. The urban dictionary definition:

1.	swaray
	How stupid people spell soiree.   You are not invited to the soiree because you are a moron for spelling it swaray.

Ha ha. We laughed about that on and off all day. Yeah. Work has been a little slow....

I Still Remember

Thanks for the comment haikus on the last post. I loved them.

Today my oldest turns 20. It seems crazy to me that she's that old already. Being the hilarious girl she is, she posted something on Facebook saying that her dad and I should thank her for beating teen pregnancy. har har.

Two weeks ago, Stinky won an iPad at her after prom party. Coadster was home that weekend and almost tried to steal it, she was so envious. So, when The Guy and I talked about what to get Coadster for her birthday, The Guy brought up the fact that he never got Coadster a graduation present. I reminded him that was because we weren't dating then and he didn't know Coadster then. He said that it didn't seem at all fair that he would buy Stinky a grad present and not Coadster. He added to what were already going to spend for Coadster's birthday, and we got her an iPad. It seemed to make her very, very happy.

I hope her twenties also make her very, very happy

Mama's Gonna Put All Her Fears Into You

Welcome to the land of the abandoned blog! Sorry about the hiatus. I just keep trying to fit so much crap into every day, that some things get forced out.

Anyway, i want to wish everyone male or female a happy mutha's Day! Mine was lovely, I did have a bit of a migraine that made me very, very tired and cranky. But n the morning, I did a 20 mile time trial bike race at about 22 miles per hour. Last year, I could barely even ride 20 mph for a second, let alone for almost an hour.

After the race, The Guy and I picked up his mom and went to Agusta for brunch. The food was great and we had a good talk, then we went back to his mom's house and watched some old home movies from when The Guy was very young> he was pretty damn adorable.

I took a nap when we got home, and then once I got up, The Guy massaged my neck and shoulders and pretty much cure my migraine. I went out and planted most of my garden and then The Guy and I ate together, before he went off with a friend to play pool.

I ended the evening with a nice, hot bath and read my book - The Illumination. It's pretty good, so far.

I hope you all had wonderful days as well.

These Are the Days It Rains But It Never Pours

This was my companion while I read an lunched outside today.

I'm trying something different today. I'm writing first and THEN adding my photo. I hope it works better than the other way around.

This week has been nice and busy. I was feeling a little physically burnt out, so I took a break from training. I guess we'll see in my bike races this weekend whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The Guy has been  having some work stress. I know how that goes, so I've been trying to help him by treating it with food, cocktails and escapism. That's healthy, right? We watched Rear Window on Tuesday night. I figure Grace Kelly can make almost anyone feel better. Then on Wednesday, we watched a movie called Two Seconds. It's a Canadian film about a woman who does downhill bike races until she gets kicked off her team for being too old (at 28) and turns to bike messaging. It was a quirky little film, but I really liked it.

I am currently reading A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. I love her writing, although she does make it seem like everyone in the world she creates is much more clever and pithy than I've ever found in my universe.

It Keeps You Runnin'. Yeah it keeps You Runnin'.

The Guy coming in behind a woman pushing a stroller. It wasn't that The Guy was that slow, It was that the woman was THAT fast. The Guy and I did a 10K race on Saturday called Dam to Downtown. We ran from the Coralville Dam to College Green Park. I had run this race 2 years ago in 56 minutes, when I was 10 lbs lighter. I would've been happy with that time again this year.

And They're Very Cool for Cats. They're Cool for Cats.

Here is my new Time Trial helmet. I was trying to put my head in such a way that you could see the back of it, but all I managed to do was make it look like I have a crick in my neck and a gigantic finger. Perfect. 

Since I can't figure out how the new Blogger works, I can't write the text underneath each picture like I used to. So, the flowers below are yellow irises from my backyard. None of the purple ones have bloomed, but the yellow ones are pretty nice.

I tried to upload a video I took of our cats below. I have no idea if it will work. I titled it: Archie Letting the Cat Out of the Bag. I'm sure Stinky will love the fact that the cats are playing in the bag that holds her new graduation dress. I figure if she didn't like it, she wouldn't leave it on the floor, right?

Reflections Still Look the Same to Me

These flowers grow on some shrubbery outside my window. Does anyone know what the flowers are called?

Things have been going along just swimmingly. I had a nice weekend. I ran, rode my bike, mowed some lawns, had a little dinner party, drank too much wine and ate some really good food. On Sunday night, we watched The Hustler. I hadn't seen it in forever. Even though it isn't exactly the "feel good movie" of the century, it is so good and you can't really go wrong with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott and Piper Laurie, can you?

I started reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I'm not entirely sure what the concept is yet, but I think it's about people who are possibly cloned and raised to be organ donors? I'm about halfway through, so a lot of things are just inferred and I guess I'll understand things better when I finish. I still don't get why they don't just try to get away and not become donors somehow...

Are You Ready for the Country, Because It's Time to Go

"ORIGINAL PHOTO COPYRIGHT JUSTIN TORNER CREATIVE STUDIO, http://justintorner.photoshelter.com" S



What is up with Blogger now? Posting is all weird and I can't get it to work like it used to. Grrrr. Apparently I'm too old to deal with change.

Anyway, I did a race yesterday. My goal all season is to stay with the pack for an entire bike race. Usually, there aren't enough women, so even though we might be different classes, they throw us all together for one race. Which means, The pack goes the speed of the fastest riders - some of the fastest riders in the state. Since I'm one of the slowest riders in the state, I get shot out the back of the pack, and have never had the experience of riding with a group and using any kind of race tactics.

That all changed in the race I did last night. They finally had a B race for us newer, weaker riders and it was so great. It was only a 13 mile course, and I was able to stay with the pack the entire race. This being Iowa and the race being deep in the heart of the Amish and Mennonite community, we had to race past horse and buggies and tractors and huge pick-up trucks, with little girls in long dresses and bonnets, waving at us from the side of the road. At the end of my race when three girls started to sprint, I was lagging behind, but a  huge tractor was coming up on the other side of the lane and they had to slow down, to make sure he saw them and had enough control of whatever gigantic thin, which gave me time to catch up to them. By then we had about 200 yards to go and we all sprinted as hard as we could. I ended up getting third. It may never happen again, but I'll take it and hopefully, it will help with  my confidence level in future races.

Stop All the Calls in the World

A friend took this pic of the alley by my house. All those lilacs on the left are mine. I'm lucky.

Last Friday I got off work, went to the Co-op and then came home and made salmon, rice pilaf with shaved almonds, beet salad, sauteed zucchini and red pepper and we had French bread. it was all lovely. We also watched Woody Allen's Sleeper. I hadn't seen it in years and it did make me laugh several times.

Lickety split.

On Saturday we got up very, very early and jogged over to Regina high school to do a 5K'ish trail race to raise money for our friend's organization. He started a foundation to help cancer survivors with their medical bills. Most of the things done to help cure cancer, can also cause cancer later on and screw up people's teeth and a lot of other things that cost tons of money, and so our friend is trying to help with those costs.

It's a great organization and the race was fun too. It was warm but misting. The Guy and I previewed the course, by slowly running/walking it and got back about 10 minutes before we had to run it. Our friend J. is another bartender at the Dublin. She worked until close and then drank until the race. She showed up reeking of alcohol and we kept making jokes about how we could get drunk for free by huffing her or licking her. She ran the race and did just fine, and then promptly went home to go to bed.

The Guy and our friend A.

The Guy and I went home after the race and got ready to ride our bikes to Riverside to see our friend, S. and his wife. We had lunch at Murphy's and then rode home.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we got home, so we basically just got some Chinese food and watched the movie, Cedar Rapids. it was fine. Nothing too memorable. I did think it was funny that they tried to make Iowa seem like it was some crazy, party state. Actually, the most memorable thing about it, is that it put that song, "Hotline" in my head. It was a amusing for about 5 minutes...

Our favorite bartender, S. and his wife and his phone.

Sunday was a very lazy day for me. I was pretty tired. I did a lot of lying around, reading a book called InZanesville, by Jo Ann Beard. She was in the non-fiction writer's workshop here and is an amazing writer. This is more of a young adult novel, about 14 year old girls trying to grow up in the Quad Cities in the early 70's. I love it so far.

The Guy spent most of the day building up a new road bike for himself. We did swim laps in the afternoon, and then got take-out Indian food and went down to the Dublin to eat it and feed our favorite bartender, S. while he worked. Our friend Bry came down and had a beer, before he and The Guy headed off to play pool and I headed off home to lie around and read my book some more. The end.

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

I'm way in the back of the pic, to the left, wearing black.

So, we did a time trial race last night. That's the kind of bike racing one would do in a triathlon. The Guy built me up a time trial bike, but I didn't have the special clothes or helmet. I had only ridden the time trial bike about two times before the race, so I didn't have the gears and stuff all down.

The evening ended up being VERY windy and so cold there were actual wind chill readings. I'm not used to racing in that kind of wind and wasn't used to riding my new bike, so I had a little anxiety about the race in general.

After the starter counted down to zero, I went on my way into the strong wind. It felt ridiculously hard just to pedal, but I was in my easiest gear, so I told myself to breathe deeply and carry on. At one point, after a particularly strong gust of wind as I was going up a small hill, I thought I might have to stop, it was so hard. I just slowed down a little and recovered and kept on keepin'on.

At the halfway turn around point, I finally had a tailwind. I went to change into the bigger (harder) chain ring and discovered that I had really been in it all along. Derrrr. I could have made my life so much easier all the way there, but instead, I had to mash as hard as I could against the wind.

Even with that, my time was better than it was last August, and I was about right in the middle as far as places were concerned for all of the women. In the master's women category, I got first out of two. It meant that I got a $10 gift card to the co-op, and canceled out the $10 registration fee. Score!

Of course The Guy did really well. He was 5th overall and 2nd in his category. Woot!

Chapter One We Didn't Really Get Along

My first year of planting tulips.

So, yeah. I've been reading some books. I told you how I went through all of those "best of" lists to find some of the best written novels from the last 10-15 years. I had good luck with most of the books I found, but I did recently run into a couple of clinkers.

Our garden is keeping the cats up to their tiitts in fresh, organic catnip. Duuuuuuude.

I can't remember what book I talked to you about last, but here are the last few I've read:

Room is the story of a woman who was kidnapped and kept in a shed behind her captor's house. I know a lot of people who didn't like this book, but I did. Sure, the first part was a little long and it's told in the voice of her 5 year old son which took some getting used to, but I liked the book overall and I was very happy with the ending.

Ten Thousand Saints - I was excited to read this from the review, but I never really cared about any of the characters and there wasn't enough of a story to it, to make up for that. Disappointing.

House of leaves - This book was also well reviewed, but I didn't think it measured up. It was supposed to be a scary story, but none of it really frightened me. It was kind of about a haunted house, with rooms that grew and changed and growled and from what I can tell, were supposed to represent the female psyche. I have a feeling, this book would have been a lot scarier had I been a man. Most women I know are pretty used to our own growling and unpredictable spaces.

The Accidental - I'm almost done with this now. It is an English novel and I like it. I don't love it, I don't feel like I want to devour it, like some books I read, but it's interesting and well written. I do agree with the review that had problems with the stranger who imposes herself on the family - she isn't either likable enough or fascinating enough to explain how taken the family was with her. She was more of a catalyst, than a person and she felt a bit contrived.

Here are my lilacs - a month or so early.

Tomorrow I will start reading is called The Sisters Brothers. One reviewer described as the book Cormac McCarthy would write if he had a sense of humor. Man, I hope it lives up to that.

And When They Split Those Atoms, It's Hotter Than the Sun

Here is a thingamajig that waters crops in Iowa.

Coadster came home this weekend. Hurray! We tried to plan a few fun things for her to do. On Friday night, I grilled salmon for her and steak for Stinky and we had a couple of our friends over. It was a nice dinner and we had a good talk, and Coadster gave us the stuff she brought back from London for us.

The Guy relaxing with his Heidi cat.

Coadster read The Hunger Games most of the day on Saturday. I used to get a little annoyed when she would lie around and watch horrible reality TV shows when she came home to visit. She explained to me that she did so much at school, that coming home was like a vacation and that was how she decompressed. I get that. I don't like the horrible screeching from the people on reality shows in my living room all day, but I understand that's how she veg's-out. This time, it was reading The Hunger Games. She wanted to finish it before she saw the movie that night.

I cleaned the house for most of the day, while The Guy built up my time trial bike (the kind of bike you use in a triathlon). later in the afternoon, The Guy and I took our time trial bikes for a little spin. It was so fun.

That night, The Guy took me and the girls out for dinner at the Altas. we had a nice meal and got a good talk in with my daughters.

My girls at Atlas.

On Sunday, The Guy and I went to our friend E's house to help her get her bike set-up. We came home and got ready to ride. We went out to a road where we will race in about a month and then we were headed to Riverside to see our friend S., when I ran over an aluminum can and it poked a hole in my back tire. It wouldn't hold air, so I walked my bike on the side of the road in the heat of our unseasonably warm Iowa Spring, while The Guy rode as quickly as possible to our friend S.'s house. They came and rescued me and S. drove us back to our place. So, ultimately, the story had a happy ending.

For Long You Live and High You Fly

My hyacinth - complete with garden bugs on it.

When Coadster was very young, she used to get upset and I'd work with her on her breathing to help calm her down. "Okay. Let's try it. Take long, deep breaths. In through your nose and out through your mouth."

Because Coadster is about the most stubborn person I've ever met, she eventually told me, "No! I won't breathe and you can't make me!" I would try really hard not to laugh, while in my head thinking,

"Okay, then. You stop breathing and let me know how that works out for you..."

I'm sure you like looking at photos of my bleeding heart(s).

No one ever learns how to breathe, they just get a slap on the ass, and on they go...Breathing. But like everything, there are ways to screw it up...And if there's a way to screw something up, chances are, I'm really, really good at it.

When I was a patient advocate at the clinic, I helped people breathe their way through uncomfortable procedures. The correct technique can calm a person down and help them manage their pain. The wrong kind of breathing can do just the opposite.

I'm fine if I'm doing moderate exercise at a decent speed, but when I try to keep up with the faster kids and start to push my limits, my breaths become faster and more shallow to match my leg speed. What that does, is keep me from getting the good red blood cells from the bottom of my lungs to my muscles, my legs start to fatigue, I don't get enough carbon dioxide out, it makes me panicky and eventually will cause me to cry and slow WAY down. Once, when Coadster and I were in an accident and I had a severe concussion, I hyperventilated so badly, that it seemed as though I was having a seizure, and the nurse literally made me breathe into a paper bag.

Now that I'm taking myself completely out of my comfort zone for speed in running and biking, I've become all too aware of how badly I breathe during a hard effort. So, now I'm trying to teach myself to breathe better. I am working on taking long, slow breaths that come from the diaphragm and are exhaled completely. I am finally following my own advice. I have no idea how well I'll do during races, when I'm exhausted and not thinking straight and can't remember my own name, let alone how to practice "low" breathing, but I'm going to try. A long, deep breath. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. It seems like such a simple thing...

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

I'm not quite sure if Archie is hung-over here, or if he just has a lot on his mind right now...

Life in the Fast Lane

I'm pressed for time...Again.

We had a bike race on Sunday and this is what if looked like.

The Guy got third in his category.

I was 5th from last...Which is much better than last year when I was always the very last. I'm much stronger now, but still not able to keep up with the pack. There was a crazy big hill that did me in. I'm going to start going on group rides with the women racers in town and see if that helps me at all. So many things to work on, so little time...

It Keeps You Runnin'. Yeah, It Keeps You Runnin'

Here's me trudging through the Spillway on my 25K

So, last Saturday The Guy and I ran our 25K part trail race. It was interesting...

The race started off well. I felt strong, I was keeping up with some of the faster people and it was warm out...A little too warm.

I handled the first trail section and then we hit the road toward Solon. There was one guy who kept trying to run with women and since we were going at a similar pace, I got to hear him creeping on every woman he could, with the same stories and lines, "Yeah. I've been in the air force for over twenty years, so I'm used to do this with a full pack on my back..." After the third or fourth woman, I wanted to head him off at the pass and just say his line for him. Who ever thought of an endurance race as a place to pick-up women?

The Guy finishing up his race on the last trail.

After the 8th or ninth mile, I realized I had been going way too fast, and I was weak and hot. I tried to slow down and I had a belt with bottles of Heet I was drinking throughout the race, but it was too late. I was suddenly so weak and tired, I could barely walk, let alone run. I kept plugging along and even puked at one point, until I got to about the 13th mile mark, where we went through the finish line and were supposed to continue on, but I just couldn't. I felt like I was going to pass-out.

I went back to the car where The Guy was. He had just finished the race a five minutes or so before, and he was changing and was planning to wait for me. I felt so horrible. I was exhausted and weak and embarrassed and pretty much broke down and cried the minute I saw him.

The Guy was wonderfully supportive, as usual. We sat on the grass for a while and he made me drink water. He wanted me to eat, but I was afraid I'd just puke it back up. After we got in the car and started driving home, I got even worse. I was super hot and my vision was all wonky and I realized that I was passing out. I crawled in the back of The Guys car and fainted back there. I came to at some point and kept drinking water and took a shower and then a nap and then drank more.

So, lesson learned? The next time I do an endurance race, don't try and keep up with marathoners and train by running longer distances, so I can get a better feel for how fast I should go. I did love the race and I plan on doing it again next year.