Week-End Happenings and Upcoming Events

On St. Patrick’s Day, I ran the Leprechaun Lope 5K. This race starts at the southeast corner of Capital Hill, heads north up the City Creek Canyon Road, curves around and goes up the east hill toward the City Cemetery, but then turns around at 1100 East and goes back down the canyon to Memory Grove (where Kjersti and Jay were married). My goal was to run this race faster than I did the Painter’s Sun in January and I guess you could say I met my goal. I was expecting that I could improve my time by two minutes or more, but with all the uphill and the higher altitude, I was only faster by about 10 seconds. My official time was 34:13.31. I was 13th out of 20 in my age group and 297th out of 403 overall. I can say with relief that I have never been last in any race I have run, but I am always afraid I will be. Being last would just be too tough to take. Oh, and even though my socks were green, I didn’t win the prize for best costume. :(

As Kjersti has reported, the family went to dinner Saturday night at the El Matador in Bountiful to celebrate her birthday and then we came back to my house for games. We had a great time. It has been at least 6 months since I had any Mexican food and it was both delicious and awful, as my stomach gave me fits after I ate it.

On Sunday, I cleared my flower beds and got them ready for new wood chips. My real estate agent advised that I make them easy to maintain while I am showing the house. I worked for several hours and by evening was so sore that I couldn’t finish the job. I could barely make a fist with my hands after all the junk trees I cut with the “Daddy Clippers.” I dug out more overgrown, evasive grass than it would be proper to describe. Fortunately, Geoffrey came home just in time to help me get the last of the clippings into the garbage and out to the street. Otherwise, it would still be sitting there with me helpless to do anything about it for another week. When I went to work on Monday, my legs and back were so sore from all the bending and pulling that I could hardly climb the stairs to my office.

I hate to mention this, but this coming weekend I am attending the Landmark Forum workshop. I know, I know. Trudy talked me into going during a moment of weakness and now that I’ve paid for it, I can’t make myself walk away. I figure I will “participate” by watching and listening and who knows, it may be just what I need this time. After all the workshops I have gone to and all the self-help books I have read, sooner or later I should get the answer that “fixes” me, don’t you think? I promise you all that I will not subject any of you to my over-enthusiasm when it is finished and I also promise that if you will forgive me for going, I will never do it again.

Stream of Consciousness

In my Legal Assistant classes last night, the teacher passed back the tests from last week. I got 100% on both tests. I was very pleased, but like I said, the tests were pretty easy. I have next week off for Spring Break.

I went yesterday with Geoffrey to his SEOP conference with the school counselor. She was very positive about Geoffrey's chances to get into early college classes. She also told us about a math tutor who meets with students every Thursday after school. I think that would give Geoffrey the assistance he needs with his pre-calculus class. He has a 3.6 GPA and got 20 on his ACT without any practice at all. I know, if he can keep his grades up and get some practice on the ACT, he will do fine in early college. I think I will bribe him to come to the library with me a couple of times each week and study for an hour or so. If he had some company, he might be more willing to go. I want so much for him to do well in school.

My weekdays are very routine, so I can't write about much that is of interest. Like I said a few days ago, I do think about things. But I have also noticed that I try to keep from thinking too much about things. I am always just on the edge of something. I am not sure what it is, but the smallest thing can bring on tears or a feeling of "not enough," and I try to stay away from that. I listen to a lot of NPR so that I can blame my problems on President Bush and the Republicans in general. But, who knows? Maybe Obama or Ms. Clinton would be just as bad, if given the chance. If Mitt Romney gets elected, I will be very impressed with America. It will mean that we have overcome all of our stereotypes and prejudices, and gay rights are just around the corner.

Running and Life

These are some of the lessons I have learned from my running:

1. If you want a runner's body, you have to run.
2. There is never enough downhill on a long run.
3. There is never enough shade on a hot day.
4. Shade and downhill are almost as good as a drink of water during a long run on a hot day.
5. It is easier to tell when the wind is in your face than when it is at your back.
6. You cannot fake sweat.
7. You never accidentally run a marathon.
8. You should never make any final decisions about your running program during the last three miles of a marathon.

So, running is like life. I'll let you see your own parallels.

A Day with Isaac

I arranged to take the day off on Wednesday so that I could stay at Danae’s house and watch Isaac for her. Gary and she were traveling to Las Vegas for Gary’s interview with the Radiology Department at UNLV. It seemed good and a little strange to be taking care of a baby again for a whole day. Isaac was as good as gold. When he woke up and I came into his room to pick him up, he would give me a “full-body” smile. It was such a pure expression that I wanted to kiss him and hold him forever. It is amazing how a sweet baby can affect my heart. After I changed and fed Isaac, I would just watch him play with all the many, varied and unusual things that Danae and Gary have there for him. I could almost see his mind working as he studied and experimented with everything. Sometimes he would get such a big, satisfied look of pleasure on his face when he managed to make a sound or play a song, that I just had to laugh. His world is a joyous and fascinating place.

I took my second set of tests in my Legal Assistant classes. The tests were so easy that I was almost embarrassed at how much I had studied for them. Or maybe they were so easy because of how much I had studied for them. I had been very worried that I would have to know the terms for the intricacies of grammar. All I had to do was to identify the proper noun, the common noun, the verb, the adjective and the adverb in the following sentence: “Joan reluctantly rode the rusted bicycle.” Brother. I could have done that with my eyes closed, let alone after studying for a week. Anyway, I have an average of 100% in both classes, so I guess I qualify (so far) to be a legal assistant.

I also reached another one of my exercise goals. I ran 25 out of the 28 days in February for 90 %. On the weekends in February, I added another mile to my run, so that I was running four miles. I am so proud that I can do it. But now that it is March, I have to start all over again. Just like Groundhog Day.

Ring the Bells

I would say that the family can pretty much count on Kjersti’s making a blog entry every day. Every morning when I come to work, fire up the computer and check the family blogs, I can bet that there will be something new from Kjersti. Chelsee and Danae are quite regular writers, too. Even Allison, with all she is doing currently, writes fairly frequently. So, I think, “What is wrong with me?”

It is not that absolutely nothing happens in my life. Just last week we got new carpet in a bedroom downstairs and on the stairs themselves; we got our poor, sad plantation shutters repaired so they look perfect now; we got new ceilings in the kids’ bathroom and the family room downstairs; and we got various drywall repairs done throughout the house, including the crumbling wall in the master bathroom. It feels really good to have those things fixed. There is still a lot of painting to be done and much junk to be gone through, thrown away and organized. But many of the major things that I wanted to fix in my house have now been fixed.

Things happen at work, too. Last week, I was moved from my nice spot by a huge window in the engineering department into a corner at the end of our lunch/meeting room upstairs. You guessed it: There are no windows. My boss’s current desk is what we had been using to set our coffee pot on in the engineering section. My own desk has been put together from various parts of various desks that could be scrounged from storage. I tell people who seem surprised to see us where we are that we had to make room for the important people in the company. Sarcastic? Oh, yes.

I read about Kameryn and Isaac and see many pictures of them, and I feel guilty that I didn’t do more to capture those same kinds of moments when you all were little. I was really overwhelmed with motherhood and there wasn’t an internet or a digital camera in a cell phone to make it any easier for me. I do hope you all know that I loved each one of you just as much as Kjersti loves Kameryn and Danae loves Isaac. I was just as awed at the wonder of each of you as you grew, and just as proud of everything each of you learned. That is why, when there is a flood in the basement and my boxes of stuff get wet, I still can’t part with Kjersti’s President Awards or Wesley’s grades from Junior High. You would have seen pages of stuff lying around the room so they could dry and then be put back into another box. I keep thinking maybe I can throw them away next time.

Anyway, as I read Kjersti’s process of planning what she will write, by noticing what she thinks about and what she does, I think, “I could do that.” Goodness knows, I do think about things. So I will try to write more often. I know I have said that before, but I will still try to write more often.

Here is a poem I found when I was going through my wet treasures last week-end:

Ring the bells you still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.