Scott the Famous

Scott is pretty much famous now. Check out this feature on him...

http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/hils/BIOPHYSICS_Feature.html

Yep, that's my awesome husband.

Bruce is awesome too. He learned to say "please" this week and sings the "cleanup song" as he puts his trucks away. He also knows how to say "amen" now and belts it out at the end of prayers. He is picking up lots of new words including "beans" and "chocolate."

And as for me, I ran a mile last night in 5:04 - my fastest ever! I ran it as the anchor leg in a distance medley relay (1200, 400, 800, then 1600) and barely won in 11:59. The next team came in 0.53-second later. My last 200 meters was in 35 seconds, which is probably another personal record. My legs had to awaken out of the stupor of marathon training; they're a bit sore today! My next race is in two weeks at the BU Valentine Invitational, where I'm racing the 5k.

(photo credit to Susan Gilbert, who shot this for the Harvard newsletter)

Making Money at the Mall

Scott is finally coming home tomorrow - hooray! I've been teetering on the edge of sanity, mooching off friends for babysitting while I run, and working way too much at night.

Bruce and I went to the mall to get a new cell phone the other day. I rarely go to the mall, but I had to go to a certain Cingular store to fix my bill and get a new phone (I got a fancy free phone that I'm still learning to use). Anyway, we went early on a weekday morning so it was only us and old people there. Bruce was fascinated by the escalators, so we rode up and down five times. Then I let him run around a bit, but he just gravitated to one of those gigantic gumball machines and started panting. He's never even had a gumball; how does he know he wants one? To make our trip to the mall even better, I had an old Gap gift card in my wallet. I thought it had $1.50 on it, so I went to the sale section and found a $5 pair of pants for Bruce. I went to pay and it turns out that card had a whopping $8 on it. And if a card has less than $5 on it, Gap just gives you cash back. So I made $3 by shopping.

WORK

Work, work, work.

Scott is in San Jose for Photonics, a conference on biomedical imaging. While he is off soaking up knowledge, I am putting in plenty of work hours. It's a Saturday night and I'm celebrating by writing 8 pages tonight (Bruce goes to bed at 7). Yeah. Just thought I'd take a quick break for a little blogging.

Mooner is Married!

Here are a few pics from Mooner's wedding. Awww.

I made it back from CES. I'm so glad to be out of Las Vegas and in my non-smokey, vegetarian-friendly home with Scott and Bruce. Scott's mom was in town spoiling Scott and Bruce while I was gone, and did a fantastic job. Our freezer is full of meals, Bruce has a few more pairs of pajamas, and he even has a new Matchbox car. I'm glad to be home running around town too - and with my awesome team.

Today I ran a marathon with some of the GBTC team that Coach Tom is calling the "Boston Marathon Dream Team." We ran the marathon distance from Tom's house near Deer Island along the beach to the tip of Nahant - and back. We didn't run it fast; we just ran it to run it and not be scared of the distance. Running time was 3:25, but we stopped twice to go to the bathroom, took a quarter-mile walk around some historic park in Nahant with Tom, and got drinks from our waterbottles at least half a dozen times (Tom drove and met us every few miles). Afterwards, we all ate waffles (which Tom made cholesterol-free!) and drank gallons of orange juice. Only a few more months to the real deal...

Scott played with Bruce all morning, then I played with him all afternoon once I was back from running. Bruce helped me do the laundry by pulling clothes from the basket piece by piece and passing them to me; he really likes being involved with everything now. He and I walked to a florist near our house to get his friend a birthday balloon this afternoon. There were two employees there oogling over how handsome he is. They had a cat in the store, so they showed him a few tricks the cat could do and then offered him a sucker. I haven't tried hard candy yet, and don't really care to. So I turned them down and they offered a cheapo balloon instead - which I'm all for. That's one of Bruce's favorite words: "balloon."

2007

Happy New Year!

I've been travelling all over the place. I went to Utah for a few days to see my college roommate, Mooner, get married. She finally found her cowboy, and they were married in the Manti temple. The temple was absolutely gorgeous inside and out, and Mooner and Anthony were so happy. The picture is of the gift I got for Mooner; a personalized western-style belt buckle that's huge. She loves it!

I took a red-eye flight back to Boston and was home for a few days with Scott and Bruce. I tried to stock up the house again so my boys could survive without me. Bruce and I went to Costco one day last week. We love going there and eating all the samples. Bruce got a sample cup of Chex mix and slowly chomped on it. He took so long that he had it all the way through check-out and out into the parking lot. I pushed Bruce in the shopping cart to our car, then started loading the groceries into the back. Bruce chucked his cup of Chex mix onto the ground - and immediately a huge flock of giant seagulls attacked. Bruce thought it was great; he was smiling and laughing. I felt like I got hit with a rock in the back; it was actually poop that missed my head and hit my back instead.

Scott's mom flew in town to keep my boys under control. I talked to Scott tonight, who could hardly talk because he was salivating so much over his roast beef. He was pretty excited; he hasn't had a good chunk of meat in awhile.

Meanwhile, I'm out at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas for work. I am checking out all the latest and greatest cameras, and writing on my laptop for hours on end.