I Needed That

11 miles, around a 10:35 average pace. I'm happy with that. I'm wondering if I have a shot at breaking 2 hours for the half next weekend. That requires around a 9 minute average pace...I'm not sure I've got 13 miles like that in me, but hey. Won't know unless you try, right?

Dragging

Not sure where my exercise motivation has gone. The LR half is next weekend; I've hardly run the last few weeks. One long run on the weekend, and one run during the week. That's not enough to train for a half, and I can't seem to find the desire to get off my ass and move.

I've got a long run scheduled today with a friend, and it's beautiful out. My hope is that it will be such a fantastic run that I'll start feeling it again. It irritates me when I get like this. I need to figure out my way out of it - I despise the feeling of uncomfortable clothes, and that's what's starting to happen. Suckage.

Something Told Me

This weekend, we had a poker party followed by guests staying with us Saturday night. Anticipating that we might need plenty of good food for breakfast on Sunday, I got a bunch of food in preparation, including a package of cinnamon rolls. Benjamin adores cinnamon rolls.

Sunday morning, we ended up making pancakes, pigs in blankets, and bacon, so the cinnamon rolls weren't necessary. This fact did not go unnoticed by my son, and he has had them on his mind all week.

Tuesday night, he asked me if I could make them for breakfast on Wednesday morning before school. I agreed, but told him that I had to make sure to get up early to get them started. Of course, being the wonderful parent I am, I forgot. Wednesday morning when he came down at the usual time and asked about them, I no longer had time to make them. Cue one disappointed little boy. 

Last night, he asked me again to make them tomorrow (this) morning. I told him I would do my best to remember, and that maybe he could help me out. So who do you think comes down the stairs half an hour early this morning...

I drag out of bed and go preheat the oven to get the rolls started. As I'm doing that, he's telling me that something was talking to him and woke him up and told him to come downstairs and wake me up for cinnamon rolls. When I relayed this conversation to J, J's comment was, "yeah, that was his STOMACH talking to him." So true. He ate one and took one in his lunch and would've eaten a second for breakfast, but I was afraid his head would spin off from all the sugar.

Gettin' Old

You know you're getting older when you manage to pull a back muscle playing with your kid at the playground. Ouchie. Good thing I don't have any tennis planned for the next few days...

Reading

It seems to be going around our house right now, and I'm totally thrilled. My mom took the kiddos to get new books today, and they are both jazzed to be reading something new. B is in chapter books and is enjoying them, and A is reading a book that's probably well over her grade level in terms of word difficulty. They both wanted to read tonight. This totally rocks my world.

Sweet Spots

When I was learning to play tennis, my coaches taught me to hit the ball in the 'sweet spot' of the racket - the point at which you generate the most spin and most power with the least amount of effort. You could feel it when you hit a shot just right, when you nailed the sweet spot, just by the way the ball came off the racket. The racket didn't kick back, it simply absorbed the shock, and the stroke felt almost effortless. You were still working hard, but things felt easy. The shot would often go exactly where you meant it to go, and it reminded you how good it felt to get things right.

Lately, I've been thinking that I'm at a sweet spot in my life. One of those times when things seem to have fallen into place just right. I'm definitely working hard, but things feel 'easy' for right now. I don't expect it to stay that way, but I'm savoring it for what it is.

I'm getting farther into the new job, and I'm enjoying it tremendously. Again, it's still the honeymoon phase, I don't expect it to stay that way, but I'm enjoying it for what it is right now. Most of the people I have contact with at work with talk about how great the partner I work with is, and how great some of the other folks I work closely with are. Thus far, it's proven true, and I'm realizing just how much I learned over the last several years. It's a good feeling.

There's a song playing on XM right now by Of Monsters and Men called "Little Talks." Of Monsters and Men is an Icelandic group I believe, and their accents are awesome to listen to. This song is a little folksy, but thought provoking to listent to, and I like the dialogue format - a woman and man trading lyrics throughout the song. One of the verses, quoted below, gets to me some mornings on the drive to work -

Some days I feel like I'm wrong when I am right.
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear.

There have been times where I've felt like that, like my mind was playing tricks on me, like I couldn't trust a damn thing I thought. It's a very odd, frustrating, annoying, frightening feeling. I think maybe having been in that place at one point, I appreciate the sweet spots all that much more. 

Be Still My Heart...

This morning on the way to school, B informed me that he was taking a chapter book to read during reading time. When I asked him if he wanted to get some others to read, he said he definitely did. There's still hope...

Playing With Power Tools: A's Bedside Table Part 1

The 18 miler did not happen this weekend. I managed to catch yet ANOTHER cold (fourth one this season, but who's counting?), and it was in the 30s on Sunday when I would have been running. So instead, I started a new project.

I've been telling the girl for a while that she needs a nightstand, and she obviously agrees. What 5 year doesn't agree when you tell them they need something new, right? Only problem is that she has bunk beds, so there's not a lot of room for a nightstand. 

When we were looking at nightstands, this is one that she liked.  So I figured we'd use that for inspiration and go with the two sides open idea.

After thinking about it all day Saturday, I think I came up with a design that will work. Imagine my amusement as I'm busting out trig calculations to figure out the dimensions of wood I need and the measurement of the angle between the ladder and floor (69.75 degrees for those of you that care). I haven't done that stuff in years, but a lot of it came back - with a little help from Mr. Internet, of course.

So after thinking it over all day Saturday, running calculations, making pathetically crude drawings, etc., Alyssa and I hit Lowes for some wood. Assuming I had all of my calculations right (BIG assumption), I only needed one 4'X4' piece of wood - fingers crossed I don't have to go back... 

I got most of the wood cut out (see below) and you can see above the profile it's going to take. The other closed side is going to be the side that slopes up with the ladder. I did find one mistake in my numbers - and of course it was a good one. I *think* I can fix it, but it should be fun to see what happens next...

With just a few cuts made (above).

All of the boards cut and ready to go. Now I need to figure out how to make some angled cuts to put the boards together correctly. Time to learn something new...

Meanwhile, in the Shallower End of the Pool...

This morning, I put on a skirt for work. This alone is a little odd (see also: very rare). However, I haven't worn this particular skirt in years. In fact, I bought it around the time I started my first job out of law school, but for various reasons just never wore it a lot. I could tell this morning how much my running is paying off - I weigh more than I did when I bought it, but the skirt fits just fine. Another hooray for the running...

Third Time's a Charm?

Yesterday, I ran a 16 miler. Sort of de riguer in marathon training, but I've never made it past 16 miles. I quit training for the Las Vegas marathon a few years ago after a 16 miler. I quit training for the Little Rock full marathon a few weeks ago after an ugly, painful 16 miler.

But last weekend, coming back from Jonesboro uncomfortably full and feeling miserably unexercised, I started looking at the calendar and got a little irritated. I've got a very solid base. I'm signed up for the damn marathon. I've got 4 weekends in front of me. Enough time to do a 16, 18, 20, and a step back run before M-day. I. Could. Do. This.

I'm fairly certain that there were several elements that contributed to how ugly the 16 miler was a few weeks ago. It was cold, windy, and I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated and underfed for a run of that length. Whatever the perfect storm was, it left me feeling very bad about my running in general, and it took watching some of that endurance and tone slip away before I decided to get off my ass and do something about it.

Yesterday, I knocked out the 16 miles in 2 hours, 52 minutes. That's a 10:47 pace, nearly 30 seconds faster for each mile than the one a few weeks ago. It's also about 20 seconds faster per mile than the one I ran 2 years ago. Along with more experience running, I'm sure some of the faster time was J running the second 8 miles with me. Dude's slow jog is a fast pace for me, so there was definitely a bit of motivation to run faster there.  It was also a really nice day, and I actually remembered to EAT along the route. That always helps when you've got nearly 3 straight hours of exercise going on. So better preparation and more focus on not giving myself a chance to fail definitely helped this run.

At the end of the run, I still had a little left in the tank. While good, I'm still intimidated as hell that if it had been M-day, I would have still 10 miles left to run. I was also more than a bit worried (read: petrified) that I wouldn't be able to walk today. That fear, so far, has been unfounded. While tired and achy, I'm actually not painfully sore.  That alone makes me feel a LOT better (please don't hit me tomorrow...please don't hit me tomorrow...).

And and and? On Saturday morning, I played a singles match that turned out to be a slugfest. After an hour and a half, we had played one - ONE - set. The doubles match on the court next to us had played three. That certainly fatigued my legs more than sitting on my ass all day Saturday would have.

So. 16 miles, successfully done. Finally. Next weekend is 18. I think I can ... I think I can ...

More With the Birthdays...

Last night, we had B's birthday party at the house. Neve rmind the fact that he turned 7 back at the beginning of January. Between the end of Christmas, New Years, and my starting a new job, we just didn't get the party planned until now. Slacker parents? Why yes!

Several months ago, J made the comment that maybe we could do a 'home theater' thing upstairs for B's birthday, and he could have a bunch of friends over to watch a movie and have cake, etc. That idea stuck, so J spent the last week setting up our upstairs "playroom" to be a theater for kiddos.

This is the 'screen' for the movie. It is quite possibly the only sheet I have ever / will ever iron in my life. Those things are a PAIN.

Here we have the kid-friendly set up. Lots of beanbags, soft floor, and sofa room for them to hang out and watch the movie.

 The main attraction - a projector we borrowed from a friend for the movie. Note the presence of lots of speakers. The box in the background is a new subwoofer. Let's just say there was some SERIOUS base action going on.

Another view. The red thing on the right side of the screen? That is affectionately known as the BART in our house. For the adults out there, that stands for Big Ass Red Thing. It was large enough last night to accomodate at least 4 little ones very comfortable. J and I have both spent many nights on it when the kiddos were still in cribs and we were trying to get them to sleep. It's very comfy and amorphous and I keep trying to get rid of it, but I'm too sentimental about it, apparently.

Instead of the traditional goody bags, we did balloons with candy bars tied to the bottom to keep the balloons from floating away. We've actually found this works just fine and doesn't make any parents hate us for giving away loud noisemakers...

So the party itself went ok. Apparently 10 kiddos between the ages of 5-9 don't have much in the way of an attention span. I think B was the only one who watched the movie all the way through. It seems like everyone had a good time, though. And it's over, thank goodness. J and I tested out the sound system last night with Moulin Rouge...I'm thinking our next large purchase might have to be a projector.

Stormy

We had thunderstorms this afternoon, the first since I've been back at work. One of the better parts about working in a high-rise is the view when storms roll through.

In Houston, my firm was on the 54th floor, which meant we were pretty damn high. On the few clear days, you could see huge chunks of the city (and the building next door). Most of the time, though, it was a reminder that Houston was an industrial city. Usually there was at least a bit of pollution or haze that impacted the view.

The new firm is on the 19th floor. Although it's nowhere nearly as high, I have to say that I enjoy the view a lot more. The air here is rarely polluted, and I love seeing actual hills (and not just overpasses) and trees. My window faces west, so I look straight down Capitol, at the state capitol building. To my right, I can see the river.

Well, heck. Rather than describe it...

See the river off to the right?

Looking down Capitol at the state capitol building.

Aaaaand, my office. I had two monitors starting my first afternoon there (a sure sign that you will be heavily involved in documents). But beyond the monitors are the above views. The office actually has a divider in it - there's another window on the left that you can't see in this picture.

So. The point of this post. The thunderstorm this afternoon was a blast to watch. I face due west, and a lot of our weather comes from the west, so I got to see the rain and lightening coming in until it slammed the building and I couldn't see anything else. I love storms, and I've already mentioned what a weather nerd I am. Let's just say I wasn't quite as efficient this afternoon as I usually am...

One difference here that I'm really pretty much ok with? When you are on the 54th floor of a high rise and it storms? You can feel the building swaying in the wind. It's a little disconcerting the first oh hundred times it happens. I'm pretty much ok with not feeling the building sway on the 19th.