Lego Machines

Jared will disappear to his bedroom for hours & build elaborate Lego creations. The spaceship is his latest creation.

He really loves all things electronic so I am delighted when he chooses to do something else!

Maggie’s Run 2010 & 2011

Last year:

I was just starting to train with DJ (blue shirt & hat) and Wayne (white shirt & hat).

I was 10-15 pounds heavier.

I had not run many races.

I was almost 10 minutes slower @ 36:53

I started at the back of the pack with the strollers & a goal to complete the race.

I left my headphones home & had to run in silence.

I had nothing left to give for the last 0.5 mile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year:

I am lighter.

I am faster.

I started towards the front of the group with a goal to break 30 minutes.

I made a playlist with a bunch of favorite music (which did not seem to play but at least I put some effort into it).

I felt faster for the last half mile & even raced a lady I’ve seen at the gym.

I yelled for joy when I crossed the finish line.

I am still filled with some self-doubt but I have learned that I am stronger & faster & capable of many things that I never imagined. Mostly I am just weary of getting injured again.

I blew away my 30” time goal & raced at 28:45 & earned a tote bag for 5th place in my age group. (Yippee for small races!)

 

I will post another picture (no light post growing out of the top of my head?) when I find them online. A photographer was there taking pictures & I know she caught me grimacing & scowling as I plodded up the first insane hill.

Compromise

Last Saturday we had a jam-packed day. Chris had his final driver’s training class. Ryan had a baseball tournament & was supposed to be at scout camp until Saturday morning. Scott had a baseball tournament, YSA lake day activity & dance, & a court of honor. Jared just stayed with us as the family mascot. And I was the ride & schedule coordinator.

The toughest part of the whole day was deciding how much time to spend at each event. Baseball is not the most important thing on the planet. However, Scott made a commitment to his friend Tripp to help coach Ryan’s travel ball team. Scott had not been to one tournament (of four) this spring/summer season. Scott was able to sit in the dugout with the kids, keep the books, & teach some of the mental parts of the game. As a bonus, Ryan’s friend Michael was playing in the tournament as a guest player. The boys won both games on Saturday (choirs singing!) & eventually won the entire tournament. The kids were truly able to work together as a team & were not plagued by negativity throughout the day.

Ryan had a great tournament. They played four games & won three – two on Saturday, two on Sunday. [Note: Ryan is fortunate enough to play for a coach that honors our family’s desire to not play on Sunday. One of my friends mentioned to me yesterday that we had never made an exception – I think that this has helped our cause. Many people in the south go to church on Sunday, but afterwards many people go out to eat dinner at a restaurant. Part of my explanation of our belief in keeping the Sabbath day holy has included explaining that we don’t even go out to eat dinner. I am grateful that BYU has always stood their ground – explaining that we attended BYU helps too.]

Chris went to his driver’s training class via good friends driving him to & from the hotel where the class is held. The movie was about the consequences of unsafe driving (alcohol-related) & mentioned nothing of texting & driving (a little outdated). Chris saw lots of blood & gore & reported that he passed out for about 30 seconds & the instructor just laughed it off. (The teachers are all retired police officers.) Now we just need to pick a date & go down & get his license (hooray – Mom is ready!).

After Ryan’s game, we hopped in Scott’s car & rushed down to the lake day activity at Lake Keowee. We always try to be at every YSA activity & dance. We got lost & missed more than half the activity & all of the dance. I feel a little less guilty because there are leaders from every ward that should be there (they know, right?) & there were a lot of great people from the other stake that were there. This activity was the first that I can remember feeling so conflicted about. (… there was conference last year when I drove back & forth between Boiling Springs & home… and the time that we went to Six Flags without our kids… and…) After the lake, we hurried home & attended Justin’s eagle scout court of honor.

How do you balance supporting your kids in sports, honoring commitments to friends, & magnifying your church callings? How do you choose between lots of worthy goals & activities?

All that I do know is that I was really, really, incredibly tired by the time everything was finished.

Three Things Thursday

Sunday was Father’s Day & the kids had a blast goofing off with Scott after dinner. His day was pretty uneventful – we went to church, he went hometeaching, & we had home evening with the YSA’s. Scott is a great dad to our boys – I didn’t even know that I should be worried about that when I got married.

The YSA’s had a lake day activity at Lake Keowee on Saturday. We weren’t able to be there for the whole day because of a baseball tournament & a court of honor, but it was fun for the short time it lasted. Our friend MR invited Scott to take out his fun toy. (What are they called? jet skis?) I was able to ride behind Scott & had a blast!

This is what the sky looked like (without the crazy vertical lines where I merged the pictures from my iPhone) when I dropped the kids off at Mutual at church on Wednesday night about 7 p.m. The contrast between the stormy areas & the non-stormy areas was dramatic – the lighting on the far left image is more true-to-life. The clouds were moving faster than I could drive home. The wind was moving MY VAN across lanes of the freeway!! This has been the weirdest year for weather. I was very freaked out for the whole drive home. Scott & Ryan’s team were on the baseball field when the front moved in & they were soaking wet before they could gather up their gear & hop in the cars. (Ryan was at young men’s.)

Oh hail! Another storm…

We have had A LOT of freakish storms this year. The first one that stands out is the Mother’s Day storm. We were sitting beneath the windows with the YSA’s having home evening & watching the cool lightning storm. Suddenly we saw a flying trampoline hit the side of the house & then fall back down through the deck & land upside down on the lawn. If we would not have seen it, it would have been hard to believe. (And seeing a flying trampoline isn’t exactly common.) Miraculously, the trampoline hit between the windows on the back & only dented the eave of the roof. (Is that what the white edge –thingy is that is under the rafters?) If you look at the number of windows on the back of the house, you might be impressed at how miraculous it was that the trampoline did not hit a window. A few days later we had hail that fell like stones from the sky. (Jared’s pained face tells you that the hail was cold!) The insurance company visited us & agreed to buy new siding for the back façade & a new trampoline. They looked at the roof & decided that it was good enough to not buy a new one.

On the way down to Florida for Memorial Day, the skies were very impressive. We did not suffer any effects from it, but I took pictures because they were very amazing clouds.


Almost every day starts sunny & hot. Each afternoon the clouds roll in & the magic starts to happen. The winds blow & swirl & the rain comes. Lightning crashes. We get nervous. Last week the backyard was SUNNY & raining while the front yard was dark & raining. When the storm went away, we were happy to see the trampoline still firmly planted on the ground. The kids & I went downstairs into the basement to continue watching TV & playing on the computer, but we stayed far away from the windows until everything stopped.
Last night I drove up to scout camp to see Ryan & take him some snacks. I mentioned to Nikko’s dad that the sky was looking darker & a storm was coming. He told me that he was pretty sure the storm was already passed & that we would have no problem. I stayed a bit longer. We heard noise from the other side of the field we were sitting behind. IT WAS HAIL!!! We hurriedly ran to the nearby shelter & watched an amazing storm. For a 0:10 second video of the hailstorm, click here. (Turn your speakers down!)

When it was finished, it looked like the ground was awash with Dipp'in’ Dots. (in my dreams!!!) We tried waiting out the storm but the lightning & the rain were pretty constant. We finally borrowed the scoutmaster’s umbrella & trotted to the car. (How fast can you run holding an umbrella, a cooler, & be followed by an 8-year-old with holey shoes?) This morning as we looked out in the backyard? Our trampoline had taken flight again – this time into the grove of trees in the backyard. The big basketball hoop had tipped over onto Scott’s parking space and a lot of trees lost their branches.
Chris is finally down to his final orthodontic adjustment. The power was out in the office this morning because a tree was on the power lines. The hygienist (?) said that she had softball sized hail last night.
I never ever want to see a tornado. These storms are very localized & it seems that they are all localized over our backyard. Crazy! We have had more crazy weather this year than ever before. I have always scoffed at the tornado warnings… now we have a plan & know where to go & plan to hang out. My friend’s little boy was thinking about all of our storms. “He said,  I hope [the] Smith's house is okay after that storm last night!” Sweet – we hope it stays that way too!

Granite Decision

(My pictures were too big – hopefully this will come through this time.)

You may or may not know that I am not the best at making major decisions. Remember the dress dilemma? Some decisions I made a long time ago. I will never drink alcohol. I will never smoke. I will not take illegal drugs. I will be faithful to my husband. However, we are trying to decide which granite to put in our kitchen and I am frozen with the fear of making a bad choice & having to live with it for the next 200 years. When I picked the original green counters for our kitchen, I knew that it was trendy & need to be replaced eventually. Granite seems like a more permanent choice.

GIALLO NAPOLI – I gravitate to this slab every single time I go to the granite store. I think it might read as monochromatic once it’s in. You can sort of see the maple with the counter on the second picture even though the two don’t really touch. It will hide dirt and chocolate chip cookie crumbs well.

LABRADOR ANTIQUA – brown with beautiful blue specks, looks amazing with the cabinets. However, we are worried about the kitchen being too dark. It is already a little on the dark side. The second picture below is the closest to what I saw. It is brown with subtle, occasional flecks of blue.

BIANCO ROMANO – not every slab has the vertical line. It is mostly white with black and grey and a little bit of taupe. The earth doesn’t always produce consistently but this is the general idea – no blue tint in the sample I saw. I like the movement and the lightness. However, our big kitchen will require some serious seams & I think the movement might be a problem in the corners but cool on the island. The last picture worries me because it looks washed out. Maybe it’s just that particular kitchen or picture. There is more warmth in the slab I saw than appears in this shot.

I am a Mom!!

On Thursday  I finally visited with a new doctor. She is an internal medicine doctor but she used to be a nephrologist & a nutritionist. This is a good combination for me. I had to fill out pages & pages of health history. On the first page, it asked for my profession. In big (cute) letters, I wrote, “I am a Mom!!!” At the end of the visit, the doctor noticed the phrase and said, “Why does it say you are a man?!” I think she was especially shocked because they had done an EKG – I was on the table without anything on my top & with lots of sticky things stuck to my ribs & collarbone & such. (There was no evidence whatsoever that I was a man.) As a bonus, the doctor kept walking in and out of the room with my EKG-ness exposed to the whole office. Other than that, I really liked her.

 

I am a mother of three boys

A wife of a great guy

Chef & Nutritionist

Coach

Tutor

Runner

Genealogist

Travel Agent

Errand runner

Religious teacher

School advocate

Shuttle bus driver

House picker-upper

Computer Specialist

Purchasing agent

Office/house manager

Family photographer

 

I am a mother & I love my job!!

I have been taught by great women, especially my mom & my Grandma Jean & my mom-in-law.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Achilles the Ninja or Projects are Mom-Work

OK, I am going to rant for a moment.

I do not think I will be the only one complaining by this time of the year. I AM SICK OF PROJECTS! Ryan had to choose a Greek god from mythology, write a 5-minute talk, and make a costume accurately depicting his character. Really?

Luckily, I won the National Scrapbooking Day prize a few years ago & had some extra paper spray paint in the closet. The vest is now gold. … and after all of this talented bag cutting & spray painting he has decided to wear a TOGA instead.

Maybe if I wear a toga to school, the teacher will understand my aversion to projects.

Nashville Half Marathon Recap

Right now is exactly two days after I ran the Nashville half marathon. I saw pictures of myself running & crossing the finish line this morning – I look miserable & distracted. I was definitely both at moments during the day. I do not know what the organizers used my $115 for, but I do know that it was NOT for toilet paper. I did not prepare for this race – Scott was signed up (we thought – more on this later) & I thought that it would be much more fun to run the race than to watch the race. After all, I am usually stiff & sore after running around from mile marker to mile marker anyways. I decided to experience the race instead of being a spectator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We both remember many details of signing Scott up for the race. I was in the office & he was getting ready to go to sleep. I input his estimated time for his corral assignment & then said, “OK, you’re registered!” I am absolutely certain that I signed him up. Somehow though, he was not on the official list & our credit card wasn’t charged.  His registration is probably in a pile somewhere in Nashville with all the missing toilet paper.

We waited in quite a line to get into the Expo. As we were walking in, we saw one of the YSA’s who had lived in Greenville for a while. She is such a fun person & it is such a miracle that we ran into each other. Once we figured out that Scott’s registration was missing, we stood in the “Solutions” line & signed him up at the Expo. The Expo was great – lots of vendors, lots of freebies, good shopping. (I have to recommend Moving Comfort bras – my life will never be the same.) Scott won a t-shirt at the Brooks booth. We talked to the Garmin rep & tried to get my (almost) NEW watch repaired. Scott was uncharacteristically calm.

The race started at 7 a.m. and traffic getting to the stadium was like rush-hour in Atlanta. Miss Moneypenny (our British GPS voice) abandoned ship halfway through the adventure & was replaced by her American counterpart (name suggestions?). The GPS did finally get us to the stadium. We were so frazzled when we arrived though that I did not pay attention to where we parked. After the race, I tearfully lawn-mowered the parking lot for 1.5 hours (90 minutes!) in the hot sun after the race with a dead cell phone. I was in good company – there were LOTS & LOTS of very lost people wondering where on earth their car had been moved.

This is a BIG RACE!! Kajillions of people!!! 4,083 people finished the full marathon. 21,944 people finished the half marathon. I was trying to explain to my mom how many people there were & finally decided it’s like when you watch the Fireworks from the cool vantage point on July 4th & then smash together with people to get out of there. Massive.

Scott did not have a great race. He was feverish & coughing the night before. (I should have been suspicious when he wasn’t totally stressed out the night before the race.) He said that there were two moments that he enjoyed – once when someone gave him an orange & another when he was under a bridge in the shade. I totally missed him at the finish line by 10” because I was sure that he had already finished. Hopefully he will share a few more thoughts & I will post them here.

I don’t remember every moment, just flashes & impressions. I think I disassociate & go to some happy place. It must have been pretty happy because in spite of slow walkers in massive groups in front of me, serious tummy woes, & feeling that I was going to quit because of the heat, I ended the day feeling happy with my achievement. My first mile was 8:51. I had a few very slow miles (broken Garmin so no specific facts) but overall I enjoyed the ride. You can see my pictures & video at this link: http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event_video.asp?EVENTID=75416&BIB=19846&LNSEARCH=1

I felt very unprepared for this race. I ran a few miles here & there, but nothing really gave me the “I can do it!!” feeling. The toughest teacher at the gym gave me a good piece of advice, “Just run three miles, and then three more, and so on.”  The night before the race in our hotel room I re-read the psychological stuff in the Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer. I made little notes to keep in my iPhone case for times of trouble. I picked out specific problems that I knew that I would have & decided how to re-frame them. Here are my notes:

“Attitude has nothing to do with facts, and everything to do with perspective.”

I am glad I can run. I am chasing the life of my dreams!

“…but it doesn’t matter!” The book talks about thinking about pain in an accepting way. I don’t believe this means that you continue to train through an injury, but a little pain is normal. Scott has really adopted this saying… “My ankle hurts, but that doesn’t matter.” “I am tired, but that doesn’t matter.” As long as you don’t try to figure out what really matters on the race, it’s a good little mantra. And as a bonus, if you do try to figure out the whole meaning of life & running & the universe, the miles will pass by as you ponder in a run-induced-weird-state.

“Oh hello, Pain! Come & run with me!” I was feeling a bit lonely as many people were running with friends. Just then, my hamstring started feeling tight.

“It’s not important that you finish, only that you do!”

A to Z gratitude: Think of one thing for which you’re grateful for each letter of the alphabet in order. For me, every single thing that I am grateful for is FOOD (apples, bananas, chocolate, dogs…). It’s all I think about for the duration of the run. One day I thought of people that I know & where they live for each letter of the alphabet. Eventually, I forget that I’m playing this game, but it is very useful for passing time.

Best Run Video: Make a short film in your mind of your best run ever. What were you wearing? What was the temperature? Who were you with? What made it the best? Play this film in your head over & over again. Your mind will eventually believe that you’ve had all these amazing runs. (My best race? The Reedy River 10K a few months ago.)

Positive thoughts:

I am a runner! I am a half marathoner. I run 15-20 miles per week. I am getting stronger & healthier every day.  I will not quit. I like hills because they add variety & are fun. I like crowds because they pull me along & give me energy.

The 15 miles per week deal didn’t really work for me. I started protesting – who cares if I run 15 miles a week? I am running 13.1 miles in one day!! I had to change that to something like “I am strong & I workout at least five times per week.” Much better.

In the book there was an inspirational story about a runner who was paralyzed but eventually learned to walk & then run. He completed 15 miles on the day of the race – a true miracle. His quote: “You never know what you can do until you try. If you listen to others, you may not try at all. If you listen to your body, you may quit too soon. What your mind believes, your body believes. Your mind is the key.”

If I would not have experienced last Saturday, I may not have believed in all the psychological stuff for running. Now I must say that it is the biggest factor for me. My body is pretty strong. I can run a half marathon without too much trauma (regardless of what the pictures might lead you to believe). When people say, “I could never do that.” I always think, “I bet you could.” Once I got past 5 miles, it was mostly mental. Of course it will hurt at some point along the way, but usually it will go away. Each of my five half marathons have taught me lessons. This race – really an after-thought – taught me maybe the longest lasting lessons of all.

One of my best friends from high school shared this quote with me on the day of the race... "The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." -M. Scott Peck