The weekend no one wanted.

Twas the night before Sunday, and all through the house

most of the family was ill, leaving few to help out.

Coughing and retching were the usual sound,

and moaning and groaning could be heard all around.

Dinner that night was  pitifully rare,

very few could eat and the table was left bare.

 

Mother had gone to bed early that night

and left Father and the children to the usual fight.

It did not take long once we were all settled in bed

for the retching to return, mom wishing to be dead.

But she bravely got up and with dad they did face

the the children, the sheets, and bedding with distaste.

When it all was cleaned up and we fell back to bed

Dad was feeling it too, and a pain in his head.

 

Sunday morning dawned not quite so early,

and we stumbled out of bed around 9:30.

Cold cereal it seemed  was the meal of the day,

for those that could eat at all, anyway.

And the rest of us gathered round the living room floor,

watching TV and movies, we could do little more.

So we spent the Sabbath just laying around,

piled high with all the quilts and throws that were found.

Sunday night showed some progress, little retching at least,

and we all trundled off to our beds for more sleep.

 

After a weekend full of sickness and smell,

we are hoping today will find us all well.

Dad’s off to work, mom’s showered and cleaned up,

the children still sleeping to recover their stuff.,

The house needs a good cleaning, more laundry to wash,

and I hope that for now we can just get caught up.

I hope you don’t have a weekend like ours, but if you do,

just know that we have been there too.

To turkey or not to turkey

Fall is here, although for a while I thought it completely passed over fall and jumped straight to winter.  Starting the car early to defrost the windows is usually the first sign.  A couple of years ago one of the guys Chad works with installed an auto start on his car.  I think somewhere along there Chad had thought about having it put in the van too, but that is as far as it got.  It has been really nice having that auto start function.  Before that glorious day I would don my shoes (sometimes boots) over bear feet, throw a coat over my pajamas and run out to start his car and occasionally scrape snow off the windows.  There are still occasions when I may have to fight my way out into the cold to scrape the windows, but auto start has saved me many cold mornings. 

I guess it feels more like winter when the wind is howling and the rain (sleet) is beating against the windows.  Today it just seems cold.  It was actually sunny yesterday, if you can call it sunny with the sun hanging so low in the sky and the temp defying the brightly cloudless day.  I saw people out running, something I might have done had it not been a Sunday and had I not a million other things to do every other day of the week.  I do miss running outside in the fresh air and seeing the beautiful scenery around me.  However, I continue to reach for my goal spending my time strapped to the treadmill.  I am almost half way there, but still have so far to go.  

Thanksgiving is just four days away.  Hooray!!!  I have always loved Thanksgiving, I think it has always been my favorite holiday.  Growing up it meant harvest was over, work in the fields was done for a few months, and all the family would get together at Grandma’s for the big turkey dinner.  There was always more food that we could possibly eat, and I could eat pie and ice cream until I was stuffed.  And every few years my birthday would fall on the big day.  Those were some of the best birthday parties.  Not surrounded by friends, but surrounded by family, aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins.  I miss those gatherings.  In the last twelve years I haven’t been able to go very often.  When we were first married we didn’t go because we had to work the day before and the day after and travel was just too hard and gas was too expensive.  Instead we surrounded ourselves with friends from work or church who were also separated from family.  Since moving to Alaska 8 years ago we have only spent Thanksgiving with family once.   We hear of the big get togethers, everyone coming home, the crowded house, the mountains of food and we substitute in our own way.  Chad and I made a deal years ago.  I get to fill the house for Thanksgiving and get as many people together as I can, and he gets to plan Christmas.  Chad does not like big gatherings, crowds of people, or lots of noise, so it is often a quiet affair, although surprisingly not always lonely.  It has been a good arrangement.  

This year we are going to a friends house, which is great for me because now I don’t have to stress about cleaning everything in sight.  I am reminded of my grandmother who would spend weeks before a big family gathering scrubbing everything, including the ceiling.   I am not that crazy, but I can’t enjoy getting together if I am worried about someone seeing the stack of papers and crap piled up on the desk, or the endless clutter because we live in a house that can not hold all the accumulation of 6 people.   Or the kitchen nightmare of preparing so much food in a way too small kitchen.  So I am glad that we get to make our share of the dinner, leave the kitchen in a disaster zone, and spend the after noon with some good friends.  For the past 5 or 6 years we have cooked 3 turkeys for Thanksgiving.  One for work, one for church, and one for our own dinner.  I am soooo glad that Amy is cooking the turkey this year.  We already cooked 2 turkeys last week (one for the office party and one for the church party) and have almost the whole thing left over from both.  There was so much food as the church party that our 20 pound turkey, two trays or stuffing, and gallon of gravy never even left the kitchen to be set out on the serving tables.  We will already have had a week of leftovers before Thanksgiving is here.  Thankgoodness it is still my favorite holiday or I would be really tired of it by now.  As it is we are just tired of turkey.  For Christmas is will either be ham or prime rib, with no turkey in sight.   

Restart, again!

I am finally getting back to my schedule. Per doctors orders I laid off the running routine and got a little extra rest.  For the first time in a week and a half I was up running, and put in my 4 miles.  I really need to do some catch up from the week that I missed to reach my goal, but I did enjoy the extra hour of sleep everyday. 

We have still been working hard to be rid of the pest problem too.  The exterminator came last week and sprayed everything, and my house has not felt this clean in a long time.  I never knew it would take so much work to get ready for someone to come in and fumigate my house.  We were washing everything that could be washed, shampoo carpets, clean out closets, vacuum corners, baseboards, and heater vents.  It felt like we were cleaning for an inspection.  The kids still do not have any cloths in their rooms, which has made it incredibly easy to keep rooms clean.  Aside from having to deal with four giant plastic totes full of clothes stacked in my living room I am enjoying  it. 

Today swim team starts back up again.  Five months of running back and forth to the pool with one kid or another everyday.  This week the girl’s piano teacher is back in town, so piano lessons will start up again too.  I am glad to see that the kids will stay active again, and they really love to swim, and I am glad that they have that opportunity.  Growing up we only had volley ball, basketball, or track.   In those days I was not a runner, so the closest I got to sporting events was playing in the pep band. 

Each day brings a new adventure.  You could say that it looks like the same old thing day after day, and it does.  Each day we struggle with chores, homework, sewing, laundry, meals to prepare, church callings, and other responsibilities.   But even with all of the similarities each day, we strive to better ourselves, our home, and our relationships.    I know that my relationship with my children is better than it was two years ago.  There are many days when I wish that I could send them all off to school and enjoy my time, to spend my day as I want.  But I enjoy my children so much more now than I used to.  We talk more, we play more, and we learn new things each day.  I never thought I would be excited to have my children home, or that it would even be something I would want.  I am glad to know that even I am changing and and learning to be better along with my children.  

Sick of being sick

Is it already Wednesday?  This week has been a blur with running kids everywhere, dealing with the bugs, (Fleas!  How in the world did we get fleas in Kodiak?) and dealing with a cough that will not go away.  I have been coughing for over 2 months and have had many friends tell me to go to the doctor. 
Yesterday my visiting teacher called to set up an appointment and heard my ongoing cough.  She called another fours times during the day to convince me to go see the doctor.  I finally broke down and called for an appointment only to be told that the nurses were out of the office and the receptionist could not make an appointment until they returned from lunch.  Don’t they know what it took for me to make the call in the first place?  I will not go to the doctor unless I am on my death bed, which my loving visiting teacher said I was at.   Upon returning home from running kids to various places I saw that the doctors office had tried to call.  I gave up and called them back and hung up with an appointment for this morning.  I had figured they would tell me to come in next week to which I would have said never mind.  Maybe my wonderful visiting teacher called them to let them know they had better get me in.  I doubt  it, but she has a way to getting you to do what she says.  It must be a mom thing that I have not perfected yet, and she must have had a lot of practice. 
I went to my appointment today to find that I have a sinus infection and a lung infection and was given a prescription for some really powerful antibiotics.  Also the good doctor told me I needed lots of rest.  I actually started laughing.  Who has time for rest?   He flat out told me no more running for at least a couple of days.  He was being very serious so I did not point out that this would really upset my schedule to meet my goal by the end of the year.  I still have 150 miles to go.  Instead I turned red and agreed to take it easy.  I guess there will be no alarm going off in my house tomorrow morning at 5:15 am, it will just go off at 6:15.  There, problem solved.  I get an extra hour of rest for the next couple of days.   So I went about the rest of my day, running kids around, doing shopping, taking care of dinner.  During my running around I stopped by Walmart to pick up my medication only to be told that they were having trouble processing my insurance and I would have to come back later.  Again, do they not know that I am the kind of person who will just say forget it.  I don’t really need these drugs, and I don’t have the time to bother with this nonsense.  I know reading this my wonderfully caring visiting teacher is about ready to come and march me back to the pharmacy.  She did call tonight to find out what the doctor had said and made me promise to get some rest.  I reminded her of the Halloween activity I am helping to plan for Saturday and a myriad of  other responsibilities.  She asked if I needed dinners and someone to take the kids.  Oh how well she knows me.  She know that I will not take it easy, or take a break as long as there is work to be done.  This poor gal is just recovering herself from this same infection and is trying to take care of all my responsibilies too so that I get some rest.  I really am lucky to have such a wonderful and caring visiting teacher who is not above bullying to get me to take it easy.  So instead I sit here on the computer at 9:15 in the evening instead of sitting at my sewing machine getting some much needed work done and waiting for Chad to get back from a meeting.   Oh the drama!
On a lighter note, I have to post the school pictures my friend Amy took for the kids this year.  Doing homeschool doesn’t offer the opportunity of school pictures to hang on my wall, so when she offered to take the kids pictures I jump at the chance.  They turned out super cute, I really love the one of Kaylin.  My favorite though is with all the kids together.  They look very natural like they pose for this kind of picture all the time.   They are all growing up so fast, I am glad that I get pictures once in a while to save this moment.

A beginning

I have been running for two weeks and tracking my progress daily.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment to see the numbers adding up.  Already I have gone a little  beyond my weekly goal and that make me feel confident  that I will achieve my long term goal by the end of the year.  What a great feeling! 

The past week we have been doing some major cleaning and purging.  It is something that I have needed to do for quite some time, but kept putting it off because I did not have the time, energy, ect. to begin such a daunting task.  That all was decided for me when I finally realized that we must have some kind of bug in our house, and most particularly in the kids rooms.  I had been discounting the bites on their legs for a while as something they were getting playing outside, it all starting about the time we went to girls camp with the young women.  However,  now the obvious is finally hitting me as the weather has turned chilly and they spend a lot more time inside and yet continue to get bitten.  Time to take drastic action, including taking everything (I do mean everything) out of the bed rooms, vacuuming relentlessly, and being ridiculously dedicated to laundry.  At the moment Alyssa and Sam do not have a single item of clothing in their room, most of it has been washed and sealed into plastic tubs.  They are not allowed to wear cloths two days in row without first washing in hot water.  I dread to see what my oil bill will be after over 20 loads of laundry washed in hot water. 

For the mean time we have plastic totes stacked in the living room, a thorough vacuuming  of the whole house every day,  and one more room to completely clean (mine, the catch all when there is not a place for everything).  Today we set off bug bombs and hope this will clear everything up.  If not, the battle continues.  Hopefully by the end my house will never have looked better.

A couple of new changes

You may have noticed the new addition to my profile.  My wonderful husband found a gadget that would keep track of my running, and now I am already on my way to reaching my goal of 200 miles by the end of the year. 

This is not the only thing looking different today.  I have a whole new look too.  For the past year I have been thinking about donating my hair to Locks for Love.  My hair is now the longest it has ever been, and it is starting to get in the way.  I have found that I am not a fan of it all over my face when I am out running, or sticking to my back and pulling my head around.  It is now down to my waist and starting to get caught and tangled.  I finally understand why many of the women I have known with really long hair keep it in a braid, keeping it from getting so tangled.

So today I finally got up the nerve cut it off and donate it.   I am sad and a little depressed to see it all go, but it is for a good cause.  I just keep reminding myself it will grow back.  It may take 3 or 4 years, but it will grow back.   

Chad suggested I take this opportunity to get a whole make over with the hair cut, a new color, new clothes, become a new person.  I don’t think he is complaining about the old person, but I know that I am ready for a change, to try to be someone else.   So I have gone through a couple of changes today.  First the cut, which I love.  I was very excited to see how it turned out and see that it was not as short as I had imagined.

Next the color, which is growing on me.  It is a semi permanent color, so it will fade out in the next 6 to 8 weeks, just enough time to decide if I really like it.  My neighbor Alex was the best.  I had sewn some curtains for her salon, so I got the free cut and she sent me home with the bottle of hair color. 

  

Alyssa was my photographer for the day.  I think she did a pretty good job.  So what do you think of my new look?  Shocking, sassy, completely different.  Leave me a comment.

Goals

Yesterday saw the achievement of a goal I have been working toward for weeks, months even.  I ran the Run the Rock 1/2 Marathon!  13 miles, up a mountain, down the other side, out through beautiful scenery to Anton Larsen Bay, turn around and go back up and back down the mountain.  My friend Ambee Hill ran the whole way with me, as we each pushed each other farther on.  I sprinted across the finish line to make my final time 2 hours 37 minutes 4 seconds. 

For the past week I have watched the sky as our island has been hit with wind and rain.  Chad asked me on Friday with the rain pouring down if I would still run in that weather.  Of course I would!  Wasn’t I out to prove how insane I really am?  Or to prove that I can stick fast to my convictions?  I gathered my warm gear and prepared mentally to spend three miserable hours pitting myself against nature.   I meant to prove to myself that I was firm in my goals.  Thankfully, Saturday dawned not really bright and sunny,  but fair and I was ready for the big race. 

Now I need to set a new goal to keep me going through the winter.  I plan to run at least 200 miles from now to the end of the year.   Now to figure out how to install an app that will track my miles each day to count down my goal.  Maybe I will have to be extra sweet to ask my tech genus husband to do that for me.   Technology is not my goal, fitness is.    So day 1 starts tomorrow, hopefully with a few miles under my belt.