The Road Ahead

... it's a 5-miler. Yep, that's the road ahead. As in, D's and my next race. I don't know why I registered us for 5 miles, especially when there was a 5K option available. Crazy I guess. And of course, it's been wicked cold here, so training has been near to non-existent. Except for my cross-training (plank challenge is ridiculous).

So, tomorrow begins 9 days of vacation for me ... and I hope that equates to me getting lots of time to run, yoga and have fun with my boys ... because the race is a week away. At least I have the great green socks in honors of it being a St. Patrick's Day race.

Speaking of 9 days of vacation. I cannot believe it's spring break time. Since O is still really to young for us to go on any crazy trips, we've decided on a nice plan for the week ahead. (Besides the awesome joy of just having mom around the whole week, of course.) Each day one of us gets to choose what we do. So, on O's day he gets to direct the plan. Same for K, and D and me. I can't wait to see what the boys ultimately decide to do on their day. I am thinking it will probably be even more fun than a trip ... at least for now!

Where Socks Go Missing

I'm sure you've had this happen if you ever do laundry. That random sock whose lost it's mate ... never to be found again. Well, yesterday, I learned where those random missing socks go.

I always do laundry on Sundays. I am a bit anal retentive about this. I focus on getting all my laundry done so that we can start the week with all our clothing available. No need to try to do loads during the week. I just work around any other errands and get it done. And I'll admit, folding laundry is "me time" where I get to catch up on a show that I watch by myself ... so not a bad deal. 

Yesterday, as I went in after my second load of laundry ... I discovered the floor had an inch of water. (Real nice to walk in socks and then get sopping wet.) I assumed that maybe I just loaded it wrong and somehow the door didn't seal. So, I put the next load in and started it. Then I was putting the wet load in the dryer. The next thing I know water is gushing out of where the soap dispenser is on the dryer. 

Thank you Google. I did a quick search and, of course, there were some people who had similar issues and provided suggestions on how to fix it. I called in the reinforcements and D and I set off to tackle this big machinery together. He did the heavy lifting, and I did the directing (and the additional research when we had to confirm how to remove certain pieces of the washer.) We couldn't get it done in time before K's lesson. So we knew we'd return to this task afterwards. I was not yet freaking out about not getting my laundry done in a timely manner.

D took K to his lesson as I had some work priorities to tend to. When he returned he quickly tackled the problem (after experiencing how to take everything apart the first time with me.) Within a half hour, he had fixed our washer. I learned that he called a friend during K's lesson and his friend confirmed what we needed to do. 

Now my washer is fixed, laundry was done and still done on Sunday ... and I just have more confirmation that D and I make a great team when we work together to solve a problem. And fortunately, we saved some money by doing it ourselves and not having to make a service call.

Saturday Crazy and New Monthly Challenges

Today was a crazy busy Saturday. K had his last basketball game of the season at 10, then off to a Lego event at noon (where O even won a prize!) and then K had DI at 2. Yes, it was busy, but good. I think we got two days worth of activities crammed in. And now they boys are relaxing by playing Legos ... all over the living room. Oh, well. At least they are entertaining themselves.

I am trying to squash a cold. It hit me Thursday night ... and has just progressively worsened. Unfortunately, I have a lot to get done, so I really can't afford the cold at the moment.  I've actually had to breakdown and take cold medicine. Something I rarely do.

Since today is March 1, it also means the day for new strength training challenges. I did a special cross-training challenge in the morning for February and a squat challenge in the evenings (yesterday, I capped the month with 250 squats ... yep!) But I am starting to actually see a difference in my muscle tone ... so it's motivating enough to keep it going. So this month, my morning challenge is supposed to be 100 push-ups. I am going to break it in half and do 50 in the morning and 50 in the evening. And then in the evening I am also doing the 30-day plank challenge. You start out only doing a 20 second plank and work your way to the end of the month doing a 5 minute plank. Rock hard abs are sure to come, right? We'll see ...

Healthy Eating

Selecting healthy foods for our family has definitely become a job. Every day something else comes out about what you should avoid. Basically, we practically down to completely whole foods eating. The newest book I am reading is all about protecting your brain ... and it talks about how our bodies don't need any aluminum (unlike other metals like copper, iron and zinc that your body does need) but yet there is aluminum in our food. Take for example, baking powder. So went and looked at our baking powder ... and yep. aluminum!

Ack. So a trip to the co-op to get some aluminum-free baking powder and a few other more natural, whole food products. We picked up some kale (it hurts in the winter to buy kale from the grocer, because in the summer we have such an abundance of it from our own garden.) and I made kale chips for the boys. I love that I am fortunate enough to have kids who like things like kale chips. They  haven't quite acquired the taste for almond milk, but at least I can sneak that into the baking and cooking. 

Other things we've eliminated lately that have made it fun for the boys and me ... food coloring. Yep, no food coloring, which means a lot of their favorite candies. Fortunately, we discovered World Market sells the European equivalents of a lot of their favorite candies, and since those don't include food coloring we can enjoy those. We eliminated HFCS and hydrogenated oils a while ago, so those aren't new. (But yes, my son will always ask to read the ingredients when someone else brings a snack and if he sees it listed, he won't eat it. I had to watch this at soccer practice often ... I can only imagine what the other parents thought!)

D is also now no longer buying anything that just lists "natural flavorings" since there is no regulation for what that exactly means. Yes, our cupboards, refrigerator and snack drawer are definitely looking different. But I am hoping that this due diligence is for a good thing. Healthy, happy kids and a long, healthy lives. 

Enough

This winter has been rough. Yes, I probably say that about every winter. However, it's always the current winter that is the hardest. The kids have had school cancelled due to absurdly low temperatures ... and today, school was cancelled to the dumping of nearly a foot of snow. And since the roads were so horrible, there was actually a no-travel advisory ... so I worked from home. (I consider myself fortunate that I have a job and work for a company that is supportive of working from home and provides me the right tools to do so.)

But really. I've had enough. This last dumping of snow was ridiculous. It was a heavy wet snow, D and I had to tag team to get the driveway done. I gave up toward the end due to freezing fingers. D admitted a neighbor came over with a high-powered snow blower to help him with the end of the driveway. (Yay for nice neighbors.)

O's swimming lesson was cancelled. I've never seen the guy so upset. So, I guess he may be my swimmer. (K likes swimming, but I don't think he'd become distraught if his lesson was cancelled.) Unfortunately for K, both his basketball game last night and his practice tonight were cancelled. He was upset about that, poor guy.

The only good thing about a snow day is that it sort of gives you an excuse to chill ... if you were a different family. Since I was working, D held "school" for the boys, and they had to work on school work and do workbook activities. They did get some good outside time though earlier in the day when it was a little warmer and we now have a 4 foot snowman in the front of our yard.

Now, we're sitting by the fire, watching movies and chilling. Finally ... but, I'd like the snow to melt before my next race (or at least the temperature hold steady above 20 degrees.)