Running

Saturday night, I ran 3.5 miles on Mom's treadmill, testing out my new running shoes inside, so that I didn't mark up the soles in case I wanted to return them.
On Sunday (yesterday) morning, I got up and ran 3 miles at the track, as well as doing 2 sets of the bleacher steps.
This morning, I got up and it was already 85 degrees. It is just too darn hot to go outside and run right now. The forecast is for 109 today and 111 tomorrow.
Not doing much for my "I'm going to run 3 miles every day this week" plan.

This summer's temperatures are rapidly diminishing any affection I hold for Kansas.

Books

Reading is the delight of my summer. If I was utilizing more common sense, I would devise and gain a job where I got paid to read books of my choosing - don't they always say you should find a job you truly love, and then you'll always be happy to go to work? So my most peaceful moments of the summer are spent on my front porch, sprawled in a porch chair, reading. Or at the pool, taking occasional dips in the water to cool off and keeping on eye on where exactly Lauren is in the pool. I subscribe to the "I feel no pressure to read quality literature in the summer" theory. I've read Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovitch, and the latest book in the Charlaine Harris series (the one the True Blood show is based on). I've reread some of the Harry Potter books, and the latest James Pattersons. I've read a bunch of light reading "girly" books that honestly all kind of blur together - Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Crusie, etc. But I've read 3 that stick out for me: Moon Over Manifest, Handle With Care, and A Reliable Wife.
Moon Over Manifest is by Clare Vanderpool. She is a Wichita, KS author, and she just won the Newberry award for this book. It is actually a YA book, set in KS, with details that appealed to me because they were so authentic. I was hoping to be able to read this book aloud to my class, but I think it will be over their heads. However, for Kansans in particular, this was a worthwhile read. Set during the Depression, the main character, a young girl, is shipped by her drifter father to his hometown, to be taken care of by an old friend, while her father travels and looks for work. The story tells about her searching into the past of the town, looking for clues about her father.
Handle With Care is about a young girl born with brittle bone disease. It's told from her mother, father, and older sister's points of view, all directed to her. Her mom ends up suing her obstetrician, on the grounds that she would have aborted her daughter had the disease been diagnosed earlier. The mom is doing this expressly for the purpose of gaining money to be able to care for her daughter. The father fights on the other side of the lawsuit. It was kind of heart-wrenching for me to read as a mom - how far you'd go to provide for your children, and how your choices ripple out to affect others.
A Reliable Wife is the best-written book I've read in ages. It is set in the early 1800s in rural Wisconsin. A man who basically owns a town - his company employs 95% of the population there - puts an ad in an East-coast newspaper advertising for a wife. A woman answers his ad, they get to know each other through letters, she comes to visit to see if they are compatible. However, this book slowly unfolds and becomes a rich and detailed and unforgettable story. It is fairly risque, but has incredible writing - I had to stop reading it at the pool, because I would forget to check to see if Lauren was all right.

Kansas City, Day 2

We are back at home-sweet-home...by 10:00 p.m. This morning we slept late, then headed out for Fritz's for breakfast (the restaurant with the train that runs along the ceiling and delivers your food). But then we realized that they didn't open until 10:30, and that they were in an area where we'd have to pay to park, etc. - so we headed for McDonald's instead. :) Then we went to the WWI Museum - Liberty Memorial Museum, which was amazing. It was really informative, but the best part for me was the small personal belongings of soldiers that made me feel like I kind of knew some of them - it was very emotional in some parts. I think that every high school student should go through that museum. I'm sure that I learned some of that information before...
We went to the top of Liberty Tower, which is an elevator ride up 214 feet, and then a climb of 45 steps. The viewing tower had a tall wall, about as tall as Lauren. Lauren was really nervous about going up, but was okay once we were up there. The view was AMAZING - we could see way beyond the city limits, and I got some amazing pictures. The downtown skyline was beautiful.
After the museum, we went to an Italian diner called Bella Napoli's for lunch. I'd read online that it was a great authentic neighborhood deli. What I didn't realize was that everything was going to be in Italian. So it was kind of an experience... They have three doors, but you can only walk in the middle one, which opens into a deli/meat & cheese counter, with a big board behind it with Italian writing. It opened into one side that had booths and another side that was a coffee bar. We had wonderful, wonderful food - Lauren had an Americano sandwich (fresh deli meat and homemade rolls), and Stuart and I had pasta. I had a meatball panini and it was YUM! However, I couldn't even finish half of it, and Stuart and I both had rigatoni, too. We'll be going back the next time we're in KC - there were about 15 more things that I want to try.
After we ate, we went to the Miniatures Museum, but the docent told us that they closed in 30 minutes. So we drove by the Nelson Adkins Museum, and then headed out to Cabella's. We could spend an unreasonable amount of time browsing around in Cabella's. The best part, for me, was watching Lauren play a target shooting game upstairs and SHE ROCKED! I had no idea she was so good at that - it was amazing to watch her really excel at something unexpected!

Stuart just turned the television on, and the show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" is on. I'd forgotten how much I love this show! It used to be my favorite television show!

Royals Game, KC, July 7, 2011

We are in our hotel room, having just returned from a Royals game. We have stolen Stuart away for the weekend as our Fathers' Day gift - a Royals game, the WWI museum, eating at Fritz's, etc. Lauren and I have never been to any big baseball game before, and we had a blast. Even though the weather has been 100 degrees or hotter every day for the last two weeks, today was suddenly much cooler - it was only around 80 degrees and overcast, so it was pleasant to be outside. The Royals lost 3-1, but the game was way more fun to watch than I would have guessed. The most memorable thing is that we almost got hit by a foul ball - it hit the lady sitting behind me, and I heard it whizz in between my head and Lauren's head. It was truly one of those slow-motion-reaction moments - I could see it coming, couldn't decide if it was going to hit us or not, I could see Stuart putting his hands up to grab for it. I thought he had caught it, because it didn't hit us, and then I realized that it hit the lady behind us. Scary...I can't imagine what would have happened if it had hit Lauren, with a 95-mile-an-hour pitch, and I don't even know what it's going once it's been hit. We saw 2 players break their bats when they hit, we saw a home run, and one that was *almost* a home run (I thought it was, but I was wrong!), and watched the Detroit pitcher playing mind games. We got ice cream while we walked around during the 5th inning, Lauren got a light blue Royals shirt, we got to watch Sluggerrr (the lion mascot) dance around on top of the dugout, the Royals cheerleader girls dance and swing towels around, and listen to the girls behind us cheer their heads off. As well as a man in the top balcony who kept yelling "Let's go, Royals..." to try to get the crowd to start that chant about 200 times. With very poor results. It was interesting to see the vendors - Lauren got blue cotton candy first thing.
I had so much fun, and I'd really like to go again.
Tomorrow we are going to go to Fritz's for breakfast, I think, and then the WWI museum, and then somewhere else. Lauren and I made a list of about 6 or 8 things in the area that we think Stuart might like, and so we'll pick something fun - the Truman Museum, the Miniatures Museum, the Money Museum, Spring Cave park, the fountains at some big mall, etc.

June 25, 2011

I'm not sure about why this is, but for some reason in the summer, when I say "going to the pool", my head decides that it counts as exercise. Like, when I am totally my exercise for the week in my head, I'm thinking, "Well, I went to the pool on Wednesday and Friday." Which would be fabulous if I actually DID any exercise whatsoever when I was at the pool. I do not. I dip in the water a few times, pull my kiddo on a few laps to practice her swimming strokes, and then lay on my lounge chair and read and talk. Seriously, the most strenuous thing I do is raise my arms over my head to hold my book there so that it blocks the sun.
However, I've still been running some, and going to Zumba two or three times a week, so I'm not being a total slacker.
I'm working on cleaning my house, and I set a goal for myself yesterday. I had really been thinking that at some point we would move, that we wouldn't live in this little house forever. But the longer that we live here, the more I think that we're stuck here. So, I decided that if I get the house REALLY clean (which is always my summer goal, but often gets shoved aside in favor of swimming and getting sno-cones and reading books), like lemon-oil-polish the wood sort of clean, then I am going to reward myself by painting the laundry room. Which seems not-so-rewarding in print, but which I am actually really motivated by. My laundry room is currently less than inspiring to me, and I want to paint it a lovely rich teal color, with chocolate accents. That would require tearing off old wallpaper first, but I'm really fairly motivated to do this. And while I'm at it, I think I'm going to also paint the UGLY stairs leading from the laundry room to the basement. I saw a photo of stairs painted to look as if they had a runner down the middle of them - I'm thinking that I could do that in the teal, as well. If I'm going to stay in this house, I might as well do some of the renovations that I've been delaying, thinking that we'd just move away...
Okay, off to Zumba it is. This morning is the weekly "Mom & Me" class, so L gets to dance, too! :)
Then I think that we'll go do the once-a-week run into Hutchinson - buy groceries, run errands, etc. And I think that we might get to watch Ella for the afternoon today. She's the sweetest little punkin'...and I get to give her back at the end of the day, so I don't lose any sleep over her!

Road Trip to See Great-Grandma 6/20/11

We just got home from a 2-day trip to visit Great-grandma Fast in Beatrice. Jill and I and our kids all drove together in her van. It has been 48 hours filled with:
*"Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete jumped out. Who was left?" asked over and over and over...in a moving vehicle, with no escape hatch.
*M and G singing their versions of Taylor Swift songs, loudly, sometimes with dance motions.
*C saying:"Don't say the woood disgusting. It makes Aunt Ca-wa have da sad face."
*"It's my turn to push the elevator button! No, you did it last time! Well, you got to do it twice one time! No, it's not your turn!" Repeat same scenario with "use the room key card" inserted rather than "the elevator button".
*C singing, "I love you so much. I love you so much!" over and over. I wish I could have gotten it on video. It was ADORABLE!
*Taking the kids geocaching at Homestead National Monument - the first time that M and G have gone geocaching.
*Touring the farm house. This was a super sad experience for me, to see how degraded the farm is. Ceilings fallen in, dead animals inside, all windows broken out, etc.
*Getting to see my uncle Vern. Isn't it nice when you LIKE your relatives? It always makes me sad that we don't live closer to him.
*Trying to coerce 4 children into falling asleep at remotely the same time.
*Keeping L calm in the face of the approaching storm on Monday night. The park ranger told us that we were in a tornado watch and that we'd be getting rain and hail. Jill & I really wanted to stop and see Grandpa's headstone before heading back to town. The kids were interested, but spooked by the ominous black clouds. My kid was beyond spooked. Like "I'm not getting out of the van" spooked.

Summer Lessons

So, that expression about how experience is the best teacher? True indeed.

Summer lesson #1: Buy new sunscreen every summer. And while you're at it, check the expiration date (not all brands have one, though). If you use last summer's sunscreen, it might not be very effective any more. And if you go to the pool for the first time, and take a group of other people's children with you, you'll ALL get sunburned.

Summer lesson #2: If you go to Grandpa & Grandma's pond and walk around in the grass by the pond, you should take a shower when you get home, NO MATTER HOW LATE IT IS. Really. If you don't, you'll have about 100 chigger bites covering your bra and underwear areas by the next morning. And if you are a kid, and spent HOURS by the pond transferring tadpoles and catfish from one rapidly shrinking puddle to another, you should be particularly vigilant about the showering thing. Because you'll have about 200 chigger bites, and be all swollen and red and everything will itch and hurt. We should buy stock in Benadryl and After-Bite.