Monday, February 27, 2012

Going native

Bruce dropped an "r" last week in conversation. I forget what the word was, but it came out of his mouth just like it would have come out of a true Bostonian's. I dismissed it as a fluke and forgot about it.

Yesterday Bruce started talking to me about a "laz-ah."

A what?

Laser. Without the "r."

Oh de-ah.

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Monday, February 20, 2012

20 miles on the Vineyard

Last Saturday was an adventure. I woke up early, picked up some friends, and headed to Cape Cod. I parked the car, hopped on a shuttle to the ferry, then took the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. By the time I reached the island, it was 10:15. The Martha's Vineyard 20-miler started at 11.

I stashed my pocket with jelly beans and chucked my backpack on a bus to meet me at the finish. I chatted with my friends, Colin and Ariel, whom I had convinced to come race. They had never run more than 14 miles, but are planning to bandit the Boston Marathon so decided a 20-miler was inevitable. And why not at beautiful Martha's Vineyard?

The weather was fantastic. Mid-40s. Maybe a few clouds in the sky, but mostly sunny. It was windy, but it was a tailwind for the first 8 miles along the shore. Not bad.

Mile 1 - 6:26 oops, too fast.
Mile 2 - 6:34 caught all the ladies by this point.
Mile 3 - 6:37 much better. Ran with a biophysicist that I'd met on the ferry. Nice guy, but by the sound of his breathing I knew he wasn't going to stay at this pace. Poor guy.
Mile 4 &5 - 12:58 somehow I missed the mile marker. Biophysicist dropped back and Mike from my team, the Greater Boston Track Club, started running with me.
Mile 6 - 6:35 picking out my future summer home.
Mile 7 - 6:39
Mile 8 - 6:48 still feeling pretty good.
Mile 9 - 6:35
Mile 10 - 6:42 Another GBTC guy, Ken Ross, catches me and Mike.
Mile 11 - 6:40 turned away from Nantucket Sound in Edgartown. Now running into the wind - boo.
mile 12 - 6:45 Mike and Ken take turns leading, shielding me from the wind.
Mile 13 - 6:42 There are some gentle hills here, and for the next few miles.
Mile 14 - 6:37
Mile 15 - 6:48 There is a hill here and the wind gusts are strong as we run by an airstrip.
Mile 16 - 6:52 Clinging to Mike and Ken. I know if I run alone, I'll fall apart.
Mile 17 - 6:48 A few guys from a competing club team catch up. One of the guys ran this race in 2007, the last time I ran it. He reminded me that we'd run many miles together during that race, and then I'd dropped him with a few miles to go. His friends said something like, "Don't make her mad." Ken surges forward, Mike drops back, I carry on. Pretty sure I'm a little delirious by now; I think I even called Mike "John." Sorry.
Mile 18 - 6:30 Freshly motivated, I drop Mr. Bitter-about-2007 again.
Mile 19 - 6:45 This mile was so long. When will this end?!
Mile 20 - 6:39 Cross the finish, hobble to a high school locker room and hot-shower myself back from my hypothermic state to reality again. Grab a bowl of minestrone soup and wait for Colin and Ariel. They finish around 3 hours and are actually happy to have come (yea!).

We stuck around for prizes (which turned out to be tiny medals) and then barely caught the ferry back to the Cape. Glad we caught it for many reasons, but mostly because Ariel needed to attend her own surprise birthday party that night. :)

Because I drove our friends, I didn't have room in the car for Scott, Bruce, and Phoebe. They spent their Saturday fine-tuning their Mario Kart skills.

Photo via http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/article.php?id=9608

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Phoebe's cute sayings for the week

"I'm smelling with my nose."
"It's just my size."
"I'm upside down."

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Bruce's blog

Bruce has been wanting to create a web site of his own for awhile. He even titled it, "Lego Mindstorms." We finally sat down and put it together....

http://btrmindstorms.blogspot.com/

Bruce will show off some cool Lego, K'nex, and whatever-else creations. He is doing everything: creating, taking the pictures, uploading, typing, posting.

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Friday, February 10, 2012

"What do you do?"

I get asked that question fairly frequently (three times this week) and I still never quite know what to say.

Stay-at-home-mom?
Freelance writer?
Nanny?
Amateur athlete?
Personal assistant?
House cleaner?
Chef?
Concierge?

None of those titles cut it.

Here is an "uneventful" day...

Thursday, Feb. 9
6:00 wake up, stumble to the bathroom.
6:15 run out the door to meet up with my two fav running partners, Kate and Anna. We run six miles today, a little less than usual because two of us are racing a 5K the next day.
7:30 jump in the shower. Phoebe wanders into the bathroom, strips down, and joins me while Bruce watches PBS Kids.
7:50 family prayer, then Scott heads off to the lab.
8:00 off to school: Phoebe in the stroller and Bruce on his bike. I walk-jog since he is faster on wheels. Does that count as more mileage? We find two pennies (Bruce and I have an ongoing competition to see who can collect the most change) and dodge several trash cans on our four-block jaunt to school.
8:25 back home again. Vacuum crumbs off the carpet (Miss J is scared of the vacuum, so I do it before she shows up) while listening to NPR.

8:30 finally eat some breakfast: cereal and toast.
8:40 Miss J's mom drops her off for the day. Today she requires an extra hug.
9:00 fully engaged in pretend play with Miss J and a doll house while Phoebe feeds me fake food she cooked up in her play kitchen. I negotiate a fight over a baby stroller.
9:20 feed Miss J a bottle of milk and change her diaper. Phoebe wants to help too - a little too much.
9:40 read three Curious George books.
10:00 girls go down for morning nap. I enter my monk-like state, trying to be quiet while answering emails, paying bills, writing. Today I scan my water bill and coach our new property manager, download videos from camcorder, pay my credit card bill, draft an email to my church congregation (it's my job/calling to send out a weekly announcements email and create the programs for services), read scriptures, schedule doctor's appointments.
11:50 party is over, Miss J wakes up.

12:00 drink my daily ferrous sulfate, heat up lunch. Today it's white bean-arborio rice soup for me and fish-spinach-potato for Miss J. Spoon-feed J and myself.
12:45 Phoebe wakes up, needs snuggling.
1:00 feed Phoebe, do dishes, collect tiny Box Tops scattered throughout kitchen drawer, watch helplessly as bookshelf gets unloaded by Miss J.
1:30 write notes for J's parents. I keep a log of what she eats, things she does, etc. Change a diaper and help Phoebe go potty.
1:50 clean up a few disasters: toys, books everywhere.
2:10 bundle up and load ladies into the double stroller.
2:30 go to pick up Bruce at school and find he has a playdate planned: all I have to do is say yes. I do, and he goes home with a friend and I take the ladies to the park. Then to the store to get diapers (I forgot to tell J's parents I was out - oops). Then to Goodwill to grab some more pants for Bruce (blew out the left knee on three more pairs, got too tall for another two pairs = time for more pants).
3:30 feed J another bottle of milk. She's getting sleepy. We read Poppleton books.
4:15 nap no. 2 for J. I read a few more books with Phoebe while J falls asleep, then we start making dinner. Phoebe washes and hands me the potatoes. I peel them.

5:15 J wakes up. She jumps on the rocking horse.
5:30 J's dad picks her up. I try to give him the highlights of the day while Phoebe yells in the background: she climbed into J's crib and got stuck.
5:50 Scott walks in with post-playdate Bruce. We sit down to dinner: chickenless chicken for me, chicken for everyone else. Mashed potatoes and salad for all.
6:20 head out with Phoebe. We pick up a friend and do our weekly grocery shopping. Phoebe likes to come so she can pick out yogurt and Arthur-shaped macaroni and cheese. She gets orange stickers in the checkout line and covers me in them.
7:30 we finish shopping before our friend and wait in the car. Phoebe eats half a bagel, then bashes her head against the car seat while yelling "nuts!" and then laughing at herself.
7:50 drop off friend and all her groceries.
8:00 carry nine bags of groceries and Phoebe from the car to the elevator. So glad we have an elevator.

8:15 Phoebe is pajama-ed and in bed. She's asleep within two minutes. I put groceries away.
8:30 answer emails, read about Costa Rica (more on this later, but we are going!), post videos from camcorder, clean up junk pile that accumulated on my desk during the day.
9:00 Scott rubs my feet while I eat ice cream and watch TV. Wonder how I got this lucky.
10:00 Head to bed. Wonder how I can race the 5K at this time the following night.

* update: Ran at 10:30 p.m. on Friday's Boston University Valentine Invitational and stayed awake, running 17:43, a post-Phoebe PR!

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Monday, February 06, 2012

Daddy's Girl

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