Beach

I may or may not have mentioned here about 1,000 times that I love the beach. And thankfully the rest of the family does too...

We had a great weekend of swimming, boogie boarding, eating and having fun at the beach. I am not too happy about returning to work in the morning....

Today

Today feels like Friday, but unfortunately its not.

I completely fell off the running wagon last week, and finally got back into it Tuesday. What helped was changing it up some, and hitting a local greenway for a mid-week long-ish run yesterday. Anything was better than running in my town again. Ray and I are signing up for the Outer Banks Half Marathon on November 14th again. Ray is actually going to the ortho doc today for his knee pain, so maybe this year he can actually run it.

I am very, very happy with the winner of Idol. Call me a horrible person, I really don't care, but I couldn't get past Crystal's dreads and dreadful outfits. And I am still in denial that Lost is over. I want them to produce another series finale.

Tonight is meet the teacher for Ashley. She has only 8 days of school left, then starts second grade on July 9th. Yes, second grade. When the HELL did that happen?? Between Ashley and Audrey growing up to damn fast, recitals, friends moving, and other drama on my street that leaves me sleepless more nights than not, I am going to be a mess for the next few weeks. Luckily we are heading to the beach this weekend, and I can leave all the my stresses behind.

Duathlon #2

Ashley participated in her second duathlon on Sunday. It was on the American Tobacco Trail, a local trail that runs for miles through our county and beyond. For her age group, she had a .35 mile run, 1.5 mile bike, and a .35 run.

She's the tall one in the middle in the pink. Notice in her right hand my handheld water bottle. She really wanted to carry it with her, just like I do.
Here she is coming to the finish...

And closer. I am not sure of her time yet, I should have timed her myself, but I forgot. She did great, no picking dandelions this time. She said the bike was hard. I think it was because of the surface of the trail and doing and out and back for the bike part. She ran the entire part of the run both ways. And the other thing about this race was it was hot. The start wasn't until 1:00pm, and she actually didn't start until closer to 2:00pm (the other two age groups went ahead of her). And while waiting at the finish line, I got to witness a few kids lose their lunch. The kids aged 11-17 had to do a 1 mile run, 4.5 mile bike, and 1 mile run, and a few of them I guess either pushed themselves too hard or were dehydrated.

Next up for her? A triathlon in July. I think I have this kid hooked on racing!

Lost....

Audrey's Dance Pictures

Bear with me...

There is a ton happening these next few weeks, so posting may or may not be sporadic. The craziness started this past weekend and will continue for the foreseeable future. But I promise to upload some pictures of Audrey's dance recital from Saturday tonight as she was wonderful and beautiful and loved every minute of it.

I of course cried through the entire performance. Heck, I started crying when another class was performing. They were just all so freaking cute.

Ashley's dance recital and piano recital thankfully falls on the same weekend, the first weekend in June. One on Saturday, one on Sunday. And at the end of Tuesday, June 8th, she will officially be a second grader. Seriously, when the HELL did that happen?

There are just so many milestones coming and going that my head is spinning. Ashley is will be bridging up to Brownies soon and Audrey will be starting Pre-K (and the requirement to wear a uniform every day which will make my mornings SO.MUCH.EASIER) in July. The girls are also going to go through something that we all don't want to go through - one of their good friends is moving (and one of my good friends as well...). They are neighbors of ours, and their oldest daughter actually went with us to Disney World when we went in December. She is Ashley's age, and they have been in school together since Pre-K. Audrey loves this girl as well and her little sister who is 2 years younger that she is. I think it is far enough in the future that Ashley and Audrey don't really know what to expect out of "moving day". I don't really know what to expect from the girls or myself either.

I realize it's been forever since I posted

I breezed right through Mother's Day and my Dad's Birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). Mother's Day was spent doing something I enjoyed - going to the grocery store without my kids. And since our vacuum cleaner broke this week, I am thinking that's going to be my belated Mother's Day gift. Yea for me.

I have had 2 crappy runs this week, with hope that speedwork at the gym tonight will be better. I am just so sick of running in my town and really, really tired of the hills. I need a new place to run. Although that won't be in Chapel Hill since some woman yesterday was almost kidnapped running IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY on a very busy street.

Audrey's dance recital is Saturday and her dress rehearsal is tonight. I need to figure out how to hold it together so that I am not a sobbing mess for the recital. Seriously, I cried over the email from her teacher about the specifics of Saturday. What is wrong with me? Ashley is still a few weeks out from her recital, maybe I will figure it out by then.

Mother's Day

This morning was Muffins for Moms in Audrey's class, and I also got a chance to see her latest artwork. The above was me like I was talking (ignore the scary claw-like hands, but I do like the skinny stick body). I think she put that I like carrots because my latest addiction is hummus, and instead of eating hummus with other fattening foods, I use carrots. I also like how she left out any mention of Ashley saying I like to play games with my daughter, not daughters. And I definitely like to run!

Mickey Mouse and Happy Neurons...

First off, the Mickey Mouse thing. I have to admit, seeing the video on this blog post brought tears to my eyes. HOW FREAKIN COOL!

So we had book club on Monday night, and the book was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. I think all of us in book club agreed that it was kind of weird saying we enjoyed a book about a woman with early-onset Alzheimer's, but we did. It was exceptionaly written and interesting how the different family members reacted.

One of the things in the book the woman has to do is take mental tests during her doctor's appointments. I often sit at my desk at lunch eating my Lean Cuisine, and instead of cruising the gossip blogs, I actually enjoy going to some of the websites that have brain games. The connection to the book mentioned above? A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that subjects frequently participating in cognitively stimulating activities had a 63% lower risk of dementia/Alzheimer’s than less frequent participants.

So the most recent website I found was HAPPYneuron. Between memory, language, attention, executive, and visual-spatial games, I was set. And let me warn you, some of the games are hard. Or maybe I shouldn't tell you because maybe they are just hard for me, but whatever. It's nice in that it gives you a summary of how you have done as well.

This what I look like at the gym...

I did intervals at the gym last night - 1 mile warm up, 3 miles of intervals. Needless to say, I was a little sweaty. I was still sweating even after I showered and was driving home. Gross.

Some things just really, REALLY piss me off

I have to vent for a few minutes, bear with me.

I have a friend on Facebook who posts frequent status updates. She also works doing a home business, which I think is awesome. She doesn't live anywhere near me, so I often get a laugh out of her updates and catching up with pictures of her and her family on Facebook.

Until today when her status update was something along the lines of "I get to have cupcakes with my daughter for her birthday at preschool because I don't have a mean boss and I don't have to take off work in order to be there for all of my kids' events" yada, yada, yada.

And maybe I shouldn't take offense to this. I mean, she is also frequently posting updates to try and get people to join her sales team, and this is most likely aimed at that as well. You know, work for me and you will only have to have 2 parties a month and make thousands of dollars.

But DAMN, I am there for all my kids stuff. I volunteer monthly in Ashley's class. Friday morning muffins for Mom at Audrey's school? I will be there. I have had lunch with Ashley so many times I have lost count (it helps that I work from home one day a week...).

I held back from responding to her post. I could have, maybe should have, but in the end I don't like confrontation. And as I said before, I don't think it was her intention to slam Moms who work outside of the home at a 9-5 job.

Okay, I think I have calmed down now.

Weekends

This was one of those weekends where Saturday I was up before 6:00am and not back in bed until midnight. Saturday was a yard sale, Girl Scout event, strawberry picking (as documented above), Taylor Swift concert.

All events were good. We made some money at the yard sale, enough that Ashley and Audrey got overly priced t-shirts at Taylor Swift. The Girl Scout event was at the Joel Lane museum in downtown Raleigh. He was the first settler in Raleigh and the girls got to see what it was like to live in colonial times. Then we had lunch, and then I took Ashley and Audrey to a local strawberry patch for some fresh strawberries. Since living in NC, I just can't eat the store bought strawberries, the fresh ones are just so much better.

We went back home in time to rest for about an hour before heading to dinner and Taylor Swift. The concert was good, although Kellie Pickler was supposed to be one of the opening acts and she was sick. Audrey was tired, so she was in my lap the entire time and kind of grumpy through some of it.

Sunday was a little calmer. I got up and ran, forgetting how humid it can get here. I did 5 miles as I wanted to end the week with 15 total. My goal is to get to 20 - 25 miles per week, so this week I want to get to 18 miles. My crosstraining for the day on Sunday was carrying a sleeping Audrey around Walmart while I did my grocery shopping. Seriously, try to push a cart while holding a four year old of dead sleeping weight. Not fun.