Since I got up at five-thirty a.m. and went on a run every single day this week (go me! even if some of the runs were more like "very aerobic walks" and also very short) (also, this schedule might be contributing to my feeling that there is not a single second in the day when I can just relax, dammit), another running-themed Friday favorites.
My top five favorite things about running:
1. Except for the shoes (and the clothes, if you want to get fancy), it's free.
2. It doubles as exploration. I LOVE scouting out new neighborhoods, checking up on peoples' gardens, and exploring new trails while I'm out supposedly exercising.
3. It gets me outside.
4. I can do it almost anywhere, in any weather. I've run in sixteen states, four countries, and three continents; I've run in snow, rain, sleet, and in 100-degree weather and below-zero weather (the latter is MUCH MORE PLEASANT).
5. It gives me great calves.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tink, tink, tink, tink
...tink, tink, tink, tink, tink...
So, Silas found a pick (an ice pick? a climber's pick?) within about an hour of hour arriving at the cabin on Friday night. He finally, and reluctantly, relinquished it at approximately 1 pm on Sunday, when we got in the car to go home (Word of WisdomTM: ice picks + children + car = no). For those of you that can do the math, that's, oh, about 132 straight hours of hammering. All of the rocks around the cabin we stayed in now have little white marks on them. Also all of the rocks along the creek at the bottom of the hill. That kid has persistence, and also, apparently, gold fever. That's what he was doing, by the way: mining for gold. (Only 149 years too late! Sorry, kiddo!)
But! It was a wonderful weekend, nevertheless. We stayed at one of the cabins around the Glen Isle resort, which is a moldering old marvel of a historical lodge, with cheap cabins, lots of roads and trails, and easy access to the north fork of the Platte (and easier access to the little creek that empties into the north fork, which was a load off for the lazy parents among our group, which was all of us.) Hubs worked, I read the old magazines laying about the cabin, and my sister-in-law slept. Helen colored like a madwoman, at least when she wasn't out monitoring Si's progress. Their cousin kept tabs on the comings and goings of all visitors.
Every so often Hubs and I wish we had the means to buy some property in the mountains--to get ourselves a real summer cabin, something we can return to again and again, and pass down to the kids, a tangible piece of what I sometimes call their Colorado Heritage (usually while dragging them up a glacier or down a canyon). When I was growing up, I spent a few weeks every summer at the summer house of a friend, swimming, boating, and running wild in the woods, and it breaks my heart, sometimes, that we don't have the time or the means to provide this kind of summer to our kids. So far we haven't had any luck finding them friends with summer cabins, and short of winning the lottery, there's no way we're ever going to own a cabin. (Damn real estate bubble hasn't burst enough).
Then we go have a weekend the one just passed, and I start to think: who needs a damn cabin, anyway? It would be nothing but work, all summer long (that's what my friend's parents were doing, after all, while we swam and boated and ran wild. They were scraping and painting and floating out docks and fixing outboard motors and digging out privies and cooking, cleaning, and fixing ALL SUMMER LONG). Meanwhile, for about a hundredth of the price, we can go rent a cabin on the weekends we actually have available, and give our kids the gift of the whole entire state.
So. I haven't totally given up on the dream of a mountain cabin, but given the circumstances, I'm thinking we may actually have found a workable alternative.
So, Silas found a pick (an ice pick? a climber's pick?) within about an hour of hour arriving at the cabin on Friday night. He finally, and reluctantly, relinquished it at approximately 1 pm on Sunday, when we got in the car to go home (Word of WisdomTM: ice picks + children + car = no). For those of you that can do the math, that's, oh, about 132 straight hours of hammering. All of the rocks around the cabin we stayed in now have little white marks on them. Also all of the rocks along the creek at the bottom of the hill. That kid has persistence, and also, apparently, gold fever. That's what he was doing, by the way: mining for gold. (Only 149 years too late! Sorry, kiddo!)
But! It was a wonderful weekend, nevertheless. We stayed at one of the cabins around the Glen Isle resort, which is a moldering old marvel of a historical lodge, with cheap cabins, lots of roads and trails, and easy access to the north fork of the Platte (and easier access to the little creek that empties into the north fork, which was a load off for the lazy parents among our group, which was all of us.) Hubs worked, I read the old magazines laying about the cabin, and my sister-in-law slept. Helen colored like a madwoman, at least when she wasn't out monitoring Si's progress. Their cousin kept tabs on the comings and goings of all visitors.
Every so often Hubs and I wish we had the means to buy some property in the mountains--to get ourselves a real summer cabin, something we can return to again and again, and pass down to the kids, a tangible piece of what I sometimes call their Colorado Heritage (usually while dragging them up a glacier or down a canyon). When I was growing up, I spent a few weeks every summer at the summer house of a friend, swimming, boating, and running wild in the woods, and it breaks my heart, sometimes, that we don't have the time or the means to provide this kind of summer to our kids. So far we haven't had any luck finding them friends with summer cabins, and short of winning the lottery, there's no way we're ever going to own a cabin. (Damn real estate bubble hasn't burst enough).
Then we go have a weekend the one just passed, and I start to think: who needs a damn cabin, anyway? It would be nothing but work, all summer long (that's what my friend's parents were doing, after all, while we swam and boated and ran wild. They were scraping and painting and floating out docks and fixing outboard motors and digging out privies and cooking, cleaning, and fixing ALL SUMMER LONG). Meanwhile, for about a hundredth of the price, we can go rent a cabin on the weekends we actually have available, and give our kids the gift of the whole entire state.
So. I haven't totally given up on the dream of a mountain cabin, but given the circumstances, I'm thinking we may actually have found a workable alternative.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Friday Favorites
We're heading off to a cabin tonight in celebration of Husband's 40th (he's FORTY) birthday, which will raise all sorts of questions, such as, is it actually POSSIBLE to work full time all week and then do anything but drool on the weekends? We'll see. In the meantime:
My five favorite things about this house (which I am still, uh, learning to love):
1. It's one floor (with a basement).
2. The laundry room is literally two steps from our bedroom (this is the best set-up EVER and I HIGHLY recommend it).
3. The five floor-to-ceiling windows in the front room (esp. once these windows have been replaced and we no longer spend the winter heating the outdoors with our central air system).
4. The cavernous back porch, sunny and bright midday, shady and cool (yet open to the entire yard) in the afternoon. It's a perfect place to have a beer after work or eat dinner in the summer.
5. Our new master bathroom.
Have a great weekend!
My five favorite things about this house (which I am still, uh, learning to love):
1. It's one floor (with a basement).
2. The laundry room is literally two steps from our bedroom (this is the best set-up EVER and I HIGHLY recommend it).
3. The five floor-to-ceiling windows in the front room (esp. once these windows have been replaced and we no longer spend the winter heating the outdoors with our central air system).
4. The cavernous back porch, sunny and bright midday, shady and cool (yet open to the entire yard) in the afternoon. It's a perfect place to have a beer after work or eat dinner in the summer.
5. Our new master bathroom.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
If You Have a Boat or a Plane
Just a quick post this morning before I head off to work, but I simply had to share: an email request for auction donations for Si's elementary school noted that a "great hit" from auctions past included auctioning off a weekend in your vacation home...also, "if you have a boat or a plane," those make "very popular offerings."
I'm trying to imagine owning a Cessna, and then imagining letting someone else fly it around. "Just be sure to top off the tank when you bring it in! Oh, and be sure to pull up on the landing!" or whatever it is you have to do in order to land.
Or it's equally possible that they mean auctioning off a trip in your Lear jet. There are a sizable handful of parents for whom this isn't a joke. Sigh.
Perhaps we can auction off a chance to use our camping equipment ("bent forks and crappy knifes we stole from our college cafeteria included at no extra cost!").
I'm trying to imagine owning a Cessna, and then imagining letting someone else fly it around. "Just be sure to top off the tank when you bring it in! Oh, and be sure to pull up on the landing!" or whatever it is you have to do in order to land.
Or it's equally possible that they mean auctioning off a trip in your Lear jet. There are a sizable handful of parents for whom this isn't a joke. Sigh.
Perhaps we can auction off a chance to use our camping equipment ("bent forks and crappy knifes we stole from our college cafeteria included at no extra cost!").
Friday, September 4, 2009
Friday Favorites
During this time of transition from summer break to school and from not working to working full-time, when we all wake up in the morning groaning "is it a school day aGAIN?", a Friday Favorites list showcasing transitions I like.
My five favorite transitions:
1. From night to day;
2. From week to weekend;
3. From non-talking toddler to talking toddler;
4. From dirty to clean;
5. From worrying about money all the time to not worrying about money too much at all.
But really. Transitions, they suck.
My five favorite transitions:
1. From night to day;
2. From week to weekend;
3. From non-talking toddler to talking toddler;
4. From dirty to clean;
5. From worrying about money all the time to not worrying about money too much at all.
But really. Transitions, they suck.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Joining the Family
Had my first day of work yesterday and it went well. I didn't get fired on my first day, for example, even though I had this sort of irrational fear that I would (not while there, of course. I wasn't getting "we're going to fire you as soon as we can" vibes or anything). I was pretty tired by the end of the day, and by tired I mean tired of sitting in a chair: one thing about those eight hour days is that it takes some serious sitting muscles. There was also the whole getting-up-at-five-am-and-meeting-thirty-people-before-lunch tired. But that's to be expected, and it's even kind of pleasant, or will be when I get along a little further and it is accompanied with a sense of having accomplished something.
The part about starting a new job that I'd forgotten, or that I have gotten more sensitive to, is the absorbing of a whole new body of information. This is something that gets harder as I get older, or is harder because I already have a lot of things I want to be doing with my day. At the start of a new job I always feel a little like I've stumbled into someone else's family reunion and suddenly I'm expected to become a permanent member of that family and also the family archivist. All while I'm still kind of scanning the horizon for my own family reunion. (The workforce: a vast park full of picnics, apparently.)
Well, I'm off to roast some hot dogs. For someone's else's family. Cheerio.
The part about starting a new job that I'd forgotten, or that I have gotten more sensitive to, is the absorbing of a whole new body of information. This is something that gets harder as I get older, or is harder because I already have a lot of things I want to be doing with my day. At the start of a new job I always feel a little like I've stumbled into someone else's family reunion and suddenly I'm expected to become a permanent member of that family and also the family archivist. All while I'm still kind of scanning the horizon for my own family reunion. (The workforce: a vast park full of picnics, apparently.)
Well, I'm off to roast some hot dogs. For someone's else's family. Cheerio.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
When You Get Up at Five
It's hard to feel scintillatingly intelligent, or even basically competent. Nevertheless, here I am. Me and the distinguished-looking bags beneath my eyes. Because: guess what today is! Yes, it's Tuesday. Yes, also the first day of September. Ding-ding, time's up--it's my first day of work!
My boss (boss-to-be?) did call yesterday to uh, check in and make sure I was still coming (the number of times he's asked me if I'm still interested in this job, if I'm really coming, if I'm going to be there, etc., are beginning to make me a leeetle nervous--wait, what did I sign up for, again?) I was relieved to hear from him--my second interview was almost a month ago, and I hadn't really heard from them since. It was easy to start wondering if it was all a mirage--that I would show up today and people would politely ask me what I was doing there.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to it. Not to the early mornings or the (*ack*) drive or the rushing around that will once again be part of my life, obviously. But I'm looking forward to more than my paycheck--I'm looking forward, boringly, to routine & having coworkers again.
So! Here's to work!
My boss (boss-to-be?) did call yesterday to uh, check in and make sure I was still coming (the number of times he's asked me if I'm still interested in this job, if I'm really coming, if I'm going to be there, etc., are beginning to make me a leeetle nervous--wait, what did I sign up for, again?) I was relieved to hear from him--my second interview was almost a month ago, and I hadn't really heard from them since. It was easy to start wondering if it was all a mirage--that I would show up today and people would politely ask me what I was doing there.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to it. Not to the early mornings or the (*ack*) drive or the rushing around that will once again be part of my life, obviously. But I'm looking forward to more than my paycheck--I'm looking forward, boringly, to routine & having coworkers again.
So! Here's to work!
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