mindaTHINK

I hope winter lasts forever!

I was scared.  I figured it was too cold, I mean it was 3 below when we left the house this morning.  I didn't have the right kind of gloves.  How would I help Andrew if he needed it, since I'd be such a beginner?

Then we went to the class and the instructor started talking about different stances and how to get back up and hills with turns and I was SOOO scared!  I really didn't want to go, but if I didn't go, Andrew couldn't go.  So we slapped on the skis and out we went...and it was love at first glide!

I fell a few times but it was a wonderful experience over all.  We took the trail twice, and Andrew wanted to do a third time but we agreed to come back tomorrow morning instead.  We are members of Wood Lake Nature Reserve so the ski rentals are free.  I forsee us getting in great shape as we squeeze every bit of trail goodness out of the rest of this season and then eagerly await next season. Andrew says he's gonna save all his allowance until he can buy his own skis and shoes so we can go even when the building isn't open.  Sigh.  We love!!!

Did it!

I finished my final three miles today and so that brings me up to 13 in two days, to celebrate Tami's 13 miles in 2 hours. 

Here's another great photo of her and a sign I made for them to wave as she came into the finish!

13 Miles to Honor Tami

So my girl Tami, out in New Hampshire ran a half marathon today in Portsmouth, NH in the rain and snow.  2 hours 11 minutes is all it took her, faster than her last half marathon even with all the adverse weather conditions.  What a woman!

I decided last night to honor her accomplishment today by trying to run/walk 13 miles myself.  I made it to 10 miles today and I think I'm gonna call it a night and do the final three tomorrow. 

During my first run this morning it was a little hard to get going, but then it felt great.  I got to the 3 mile point when I needed to go upstairs and make pancakes for my boys and I felt like a million bucks.  I only walked last week instead of any running and my body missed it!

During the run I restarted listening to the Daily Audio Bible podcasts that I stopped sometime last year.  It was very enjoyable.

On my second run which I ran at 11:30, I listened to more Daily Audio Bible and actually ran a little faster, finishing up at 7 miles total for the morning in 1.5 hours.  Not a fast pace but then I'm not a fast runner, just a happy jogger/walker!

On my third run at 7pm I walked a great deal more, still getting in three more miles and watching some tech podcasts the first half of the time and then switching to a new interval training podcast with electronic music.  The intervals are helpful because they break up the time and it seems to go faster.

Now I'm curled up in the easy chair and just don't think I'm gonna get those final three miles in.  Its okay though, I thought it might take me two days and I think it will be a lovely way to start out the morning, then shower and go to erin's card appointment.

I enjoyed today so much I'm seriously thinking of changing my training schedule.  Run two intervals of 3 miles each on Sunday, one on Monday, and then two again on Thursday. Tuesday is cleaning which is plenty of a workout and then the rest of the week can just be walks and whatever comes naturally with our schedule.

Every Morning

I'm almost afraid to post this, because truth be told, I'm not a girl of routines.  I love variety, I fully believe it is the spice of life, so when I find something that is a routine, I worry that its just one step from being thrown aside for the next new thing.

But since I took this picture in October, and its still going strong, I think I'll take the risk.

Every morning I:

1. Unload the dishwasher
2. Make a smoothie
3. Concoct my latest version of the word coffee
4. Sit back and read Tallyscrapper.com

Andrew loads and starts the dishes at night so that when I wake up in the morning its ready to be emptied.  Usually my coffee and smoothie making apparatus is in the dw, so its a good incentive to get it emptied and put away before I make breakfast.

The smoothie recipe I use came from a low carb cookbook I picked up this summer in search of something new to try on Scott's diet.  We have both fallen in love with this one.  To make it you dump in one container of Yoplait vanilla yogurt, then you fill the container twice with 8th Continent Vanilla Soy Milk and dump that in.  You put in a banana and a cup or so of frozen berries and blend.  Just that simple and oh so good.  When I make it for just myself I have made the recipe smaller by including only one container of the soy milk and half the banana. I give the other half to Andrew to try to start the day by getting something healthy in him.  Today we were out of soy milk so I tried regular milk (gag)  I really recommend the soy milk.  The cow's milk made it too thick and "fluffy" and I didn't like the texture as much.

While I'm making my smoothie I drink down a 12 ounce glass of water.  I figure if I can get my first glass of water in before I start anything else, I'll be on my way to drinking enough for the day. 

Then its time for coffee.  I don't actually drink coffee per se, so I thought I'd share my secret recipe.  We use Obsidian roasted beans from Caribou Coffee, ground for an espresso machine.  Scott and I have been blessed with the gift of TWO espresso machines, so we don't even have to share.  Even in the days when money is SUPER tight it is nice to have that luxury and I pray a prayer of thanks daily for the two kind people that passed them along to us.  My espresso machine is from Starbucks.  I derive pleasure from the fact that in my kitchen everyday Starbucks and Caribou work together to give me my perfect cuppa.

I fill the machine with enough espresso grounds for two shots, and fire her up.  The machine has buttons for doing two shots at once or one, and my perfect recipe for an Americano-to-die-for is pushing the 2shot button twice and the 1shot button once.  With that I get just enough Americano to satisfy my morning longings, its nice and hot, and I've squeezed every ounce of flavor out of that 1/8 cup of grounds possible.  Mmmm, mmmm good!

Then I log into TallyScrapper and find out what's what for the day.  Whose up already, what the day holds for them, if there were any layouts posted since the previous evening.

If I have the luxury of extra time, which I rarely do, I visit here to post, or Pioneer Woman, but usually I don't get much past TallyScrapper.

Within an hour my kitchen is ready for the day, my body is fed and charged up and I've touched base with my online friends.  Its a lovely way to wake up!

I've been running...

I realize this isn't interesting to many, but I've been running.  Since the day I got back from Boston, inspired by my new friend Tami, I've been running.  My goal is six times a week, but for the third week in a row I'm not going to make that.  My goal the first week was to actually do it all week.  I ran 7.8 miles in four runs.

My second week I ran five times for a total of 10.9, a nice improvement.

This week my goal was 12 miles.  I have 7.8 of that socked away, so just two 2.1 mile runs left this week.  No prob.

Today's run was horrible.  I was completely off pace and felt like quitting with each step.  So I decided that I would run 3 miles instead of 2.4, just keep going when I got to 30 minutes instead of cutting it off at that point.  Which made me realize I have a long way to go.

It took me 41 minutes to get that three miles out.  If I were to run a 5K today it would take me nearly an HOUR!

My long term goal is to run a 5K in a 30 minute run (that's 4 minutes of warming up, 30 minutes of running, 4 minutes of cooling down)  Right now that long term goal is looking impossible.  But I won't give up just yet.  And if after awhile I realize that my body just isn't going to give me that speed, then I'll give myself a different goal.  But for now this one is staying.

I'm taking a step back from scrapbooking for awhile, which translated into normalspeak means I'll be like everyone else and only spend a couple hours over the next two weekends creating and only an hour on the internet each day.  The rest of my life is screaming at me, health concerns of relatives, a small crisis at church, starting a new job, the house slowly falling apart around me,

and the good things,

Andrew renewing an interest in extra homeschool stuff, the running, a storybook workshop for kids coming up,

and I realized I need to "put my big girl pants on" and get everything else running smoothly again before I continue with my daily scrapbooking. 

Here are a couple of the latest pages though: