What I will be doing on Saturday morning...

I had my last physical therapy session yesterday. I am actually very sad about this as my PT was extremely helpful and it was like I had a personal trainer that also did deep tissue massages and stretched for me. Everyone wished me good luck at my race and sent me on my way.

So Saturday morning at 6:30am, I will be running 13.1 in Myrtle Beach.

I am not nearly as prepared for this one as I was OBX 1/2 Marathon. I have only trained for 5 weeks which is really not good. I think I can do it (at least that's what I keep telling myself) as the course is flat, I have someone to run with, and being in the race atmosphere will get me moving.

After this race, I am going to force myself to not run for the rest of the month and focus on strengthening my legs. I am not 100% pain free (almost, but not quite), and before I start training for anything else, I want to be pain free again. It is so much easier to run without knee pain!

If anyone is going to be in Myrtle this weekend, let me know. I need some words of encouragement!!

Drama

There is a little bit of drama surrounding the neighborhood adjacent to ours, and one that has a park we often walk to.

You can read the story here.

So basically there is a group home in this adjacent neighborhood that had a stabbing this weekend. Residents of our neighborhood and that neighborhood are pretty pissed about the group home as multiple complaints have been filed with the police. And even just yesterday, one of my neighbors drove down this street to check the house out, and there was a guy standing on a street peeing. I am assuming this was one of the residents of this group home as both our neighborhood and the adjacent neighborhood are unbelievably family friendly.

I would say in the past six months or so, we have let Ashley go ahead of us on her scooter or bike to the park in this neighborhood. We are always right behind her, but she is often out of sight. Other neighbors let their kids walk around the pond that is between our two neighborhoods.

Now that one of these residents stabbed another resident in this group home with a screwdriver, I think I will be a little more cautious until the group home is closed.

I also had a chat with Ashley this weekend about "stranger danger" and what to do in certain situations. I gave her a bunch of whatifs, and she understood, but she also said she didn't want to talk about it anymore as it scared her.

As if having a group home with stabbings wasn't enough for this weekend, something else happened that brings me to tears every time I think about it.

One of our neighbors, a Mom of two girls the same ages as Ashley and Audrey, died Saturday after a long battle with cancer. I did not know her well, just well enough to say hi when I saw her. But that doesn't matter. She fought an unbelievable fight, and from what I have read and heard her close friends say of her, she was amazing.

Is it spring yet??

Yes, Ashley went to school today. AN HOUR DELAY.

And yes, I feel better writing that in all caps.

And what do we have in the forecast for tonight/tomorrow/Saturday?

More crap. Possible freezing rain tonight. More rain, possible snow flurries Saturday.

So instead of going to school for her makeup day on Saturday, Ashley is supposed to have her basketball breakfast/pictures/game. I am thinking that none of that will happen if the forecast stays the same.

We moved to North Carolina to get away from the most of the snow (which we did considering where we are from in Virginia is supposed to get "paralyzing" amounts of snow this weekend). I really don't want to move further south.

On another sort of school related note, the school board for our county is holding 4 meetings over the next few weeks about the school calendars. Wake County, NC has traditional, year-round and modified calendars for its schools. Confused yet? Anyway, Ashley is in a year-round school and we love it. So I registered to speak at the meeting next week and I am speaker number 11. I am not sure what I will say, but I am sure speakers 1-10 will give me enough to speak about because I am sure someone will get up and say year-round sucks because we go to school longer (WE ALL GO TO SCHOOL 184 DAYS REGARDLESS OF THE CALENDAR) or we miss our summers (vacationing in Disney World in December was AWESOME). Look for a riveting post about that next week.

No School

Temperature check: 50 degrees

Snow check: Not much left at all on the ground, can see mostly grass

School check: Ashley is on her third day of no school

Great job Wake County, NC for cancelling school today when the sun is shining, all the private schools/daycares/preschools all have school (except for the ones who stupidly follow Wake County...).

Audrey is at school today. She was at school yesterday in fact.

So what does this mean in terms of makeup days? Since Ashley goes to a year round school, this means 3 Saturday classes. One this Saturday, one May 1st and another May 8th. They are half days of classes each.

And call me a horrible parent, I really don't care, but I am not sending Ashley to school this Saturday. She has a basketball game that morning, and I gave her the choice of school or basketball. She chose basketball. I am not worried about makeup work as Ashley missed an entire week of school for the flu in the fall, and had no trouble catching back up.

Audrey's Birthday Party

Audrey's birthday party was a few weeks ago. This was probably the cheapest party we have had for either of the girls.

Audrey loves dance. I mean really, really loves dance. So it was a no-brainer to have her party at the dance school where she goes for class.

And for $80, we had a High School Musical Dance party for 90 minutes for 10 kids.

My friend Patty took amazing pictures that I can wait to print out and hang and scrapbook with.
A few days before her birthday, I still couldn't figure out what to get her as Christmas was just a few weeks ago. Then I was on Old Navy's website and saw the cute dance stuff they had like this grey wrap shirt.

To say she was excited about the party was an understatement.

She would take dance every day if she could.

The party favors my friend made and were chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick. I made red velvet cupcakes with a sugar cookie in the shape of an "A" on top for the cake. More savings on cost. And I think this was my favorite party either girl has had.

The Weekend That Wasn't

So the snow for Raleigh was supposed to start around midnight on Friday night. Instead, it started snowing about 7:30pm while Ray and I were out to dinner with friends. It snowed I guess through the night, but on Saturday it was all sleet, all day.

We got probably 3-4 inches of snow, but with the sleet on top of that, it is one icy mess here in Raleigh.

Saturday was supposed to be a haircut for me; basketball breakfast/pictures/game for Ashley; dinner out with friends for me. None of these events happened.

Instead Ashley decided to catch the stomach bug everyone else on our street has and threw up all over our bed on Saturday night. And now I feel like its a ticking time bomb waiting for Audrey to get it.

Sunday was more of the same. Church was closed and a birthday party Audrey was supposed to go was cancelled. Ashley didn't throw up anymore, but pretty much stayed on the couch all day. I was supposed to host a few friends over for scrapbooking, but considering two of them are pregnant and one has an infant, I thought it was best that they didn't come over to puke-fest house.

And today? Schools are closed, my office is closed. We have to leave our house though because WE HAVE NO FOOD. Seriously, we don't even have milk anymore. The main roads are fine, just the neighborhood streets are icy. Hopefully most will melt away today and we can get back on schedule tomorrow.

If only I had an infinite supply of $40 dollar bills

This morning was probably my next to last physical therapy appointment. Not only is my knee doing much better (not 100%, but almost there), I have more flexibility in my hamstrings than I have ever had and my core is getting stronger. I would love to go see this guy every week, but considering it's $40 every time I go, that's not going to happen.

I will go again right before the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon on February 13th. He gave me a few more stretches to do between now and then to get me in as best shape as possible to run the whole thing.

And speaking of running, tomorrow we are supposed to be hit with something - snow/rain/freezing rain/sleet - who knows. Regardless, this wimpy girl refuses to run in that. So my only option is the dreadmill at the gym which is GOING TO SUCK to run 9 miles on that. I can barely make it 3 miles on it without getting absolutely bored. I might need vodka in my water bottle instead of water. Just kidding!! Sort of....

I did get some miles in outside this week. It was cool enough were I could run on my lunch hour outside and not really sweat (I use the term "not really" really, really loosely). I went to a local park that has a 2 mile loop on it and got 3 miles in twice this week. I love running outside, and I felt pretty good both times.

I am going to shut my office door now at work and do the "no snow" dance because we all know how much I hate that stuff. Feel free to join me if you want.

Just when you think winter is over

I know, wishful thinking that winter would be over for us the beginning of February. But we have had a bunch of 60 degree days in the last two weeks, and I was kind of hopeful that no snow/sleet/icy rain would return for the season.

But hell, that's just what they are calling for on Friday night/Saturday day. (Of course, this is changing daily as yesterday it was going to start on Friday morning, so they really have no clue.)

And that's just in time to mess up Ashley's basketball breakfast/pictures/game on Saturday morning. And I am supposed to run 9 miles this weekend and as addicted I am to running and getting back in the groove, there is NO WAY I am running outside in freezing rain. I might have to suck it up and do it at the gym. I have already decided I would break it up into 3 mile segments so I don't die of boredom on the treadmill.

So bad weather = bad attitude for me. That and other random stuff that is going on has put both Ray and I in a funk. If we could escape to a tropical island for the weekend, we would.