Fun with kids, pictures, a run, and a challenge...

Subtitle: I have no coherent thread for this post, so you get a mishmash of stuff today.

Part I: Fun with kids

This is my last week of "freedom" before school starts. Yes, I'm technically still off next week, but Monday-Tuesday I'll be at school for a workshop, and then we're taking a lil' (ill timed, to be sure) trip to visit some friends. Somehow I always end up out of town right before we go back to school. It makes the beginning of the school year sooo fun (hear the sarcasm? It's there) since I'm stressed about getting things ready. Oh, well. I'm also the one planning these little jaunts, so I have no one to blame but myself and trying to wring the last little bit of summer out of August.

So, on the Monday of my last week of freedom, what did I do? Um....not much. Which makes J. a lot of fun to be around. The boy was bouncing off the walls (play with me play with me play with me). Me plucking my eyebrows was clearly not a priority to him (Can you say selfish?). I made pancakes and sausage for the boys (at...um...11 or so. We need some kind of schedule again, and quickly...for all of us!), and then we took a little trip to Florida. J. drove. I rode in the sidecar.


You only wish your car seat was as comfortable as the (beanbag + couch cushion) one that my kid made me. Yes, he's still in his pajamas at noon or so. Don't judge me...

After driving to Florida (an amazingly quick trip. The kid drives like a maniac.), we went to the school next door to play some kickball. J and N vs. me. Now, a 3-person game of kickball needs some adjustment to the rules. We had two bases: home base and second base. Yes, if there's no "first" base, then second base would actually be first base, but we have no need for your logic here. We also developed a rule that was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.

First J kicked and ran to second base...


...then N did.


Being a 16 year old jock, N booted the ball across the field. I had noooo nice words for him as I ran all that way to get it (on the inside). J ran from second base to home and then tried going back to second again. N told him that he had to stay at home until he kicked again.

And there's where the light bulb appeared over my head! Here's the thought process...J will run all day long if he thinks he's scoring runs...the more J runs, the more tired he will be...if he gets worn out, I may actually get to sit down this afternoon...if he gets really worn out, I may get to sleep past 8:30 without being pestered...

So our other rule was that the boys could run back and forth between the bases until I got back to the pitcher's mound.

And run they did...


I did manage to get a couple outs on them, which didn't go over so well with the competition.


But the score was a lopsided 74-3. Perhaps you can guess who won...


We also got in about an hour of pool time. There were some great photo ops, but being as I was in the water with J there aren't actually any photos. If only I'd hurry up and get famous so the paparazzi would follow me around and take them for me.

Part II: Pictures

I also spent some time playing around with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone (all the pictures above, too) and got some cool ones I'm going to share.


A bit out of focus, but I love the colors


Also cool in B&W


A volunteer petunia


And my pooch

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Part III: A run

My training plan called for an easy 2 mile run today. While I knew this morning that I should get up and run, I opted for sleep. (and by "sleep", I mean trying to sleep while weighing whether I'd get more sleep by taking my bed-hogging, arm & leg flailing, climbing-all-over-me-in-his-sleep 6 year old back to his own bed or by just sucking it up and letting him stay. Inertia won, and he woke up soon enough anyway and I sent him to his room to play until 8:30. Unfortunately, he took "Go play in your room until 8:30" to mean "Pester me every 3 minutes until 8:30 or my head pops off, whichever comes first.") That left me to run tonight. I was really glad it was only two miles, because I had NO interest in running at all. But it was on "the plan", so I had to.

I've been trying to tack on an extra mile or so on most of my runs, so I had my 2 mile route planned out with the possiblity of adding one more. Since I knew the distances and the mile marks, I just used the stopwatch function of my phone. So: 2 mile easy run. Easy being defined as a 10:48 pace. I didn't run "easy", but I wasn't killing myself. I didn't feel like I was dying at the end, anyway. :)

Mile 1: 9:12

Mile 2: 9:27 (includes some fumbling with the stopwatch, which I'd never used to mark laps before.

Mile 3: 12:16 12:16??? WTF?? No way I slowed down that much. So of course I had to come home and map that last mile on gmap-pedometer (my new favorite toy) only to find that mile 3 was actually 1.38 miles. Ahhhhh. Whew.

Mile 3: (corrected) 8:53 pace. (Big smile)

The run was not without incident. On that last mile, I had two close encounters with skunks. One with its tail raised and all. Yikes! Two evasive maneuvers and girly shrieks later, and I was out of skunk range. Or so I thought. Before long (but like .5 mile away), I was smelling skunk (it wasn't me. I swear). It was like they were stalking me. I was literally looking over my shoulder and running in the middle of the street (I know, not smart at night for sure) so they couldn't sneak up on me. I made it home without a skunk attack, though. Whew.

Part IV: A challenge

Tall Mom posted on her blog today about a challenge on Daily Mile: Run 80 miles in August. Hmmm. 80 miles seems like a lot, but then I looked at my training plan. It already calls for 72 miles, and I usually try to tack on some extra. Plus, Tall Mom's challenge includes running and walking. I can totally do that. So, I'm in.

Weekly Stats:

Bike: 47 miles

Run: 3.38

Walk: 1.38

Miles left in August challenge: 75.24