a peaceful afternoon

I often write about being exasperated with my tweener (who made that word anyway?) but not today. Today big fry and I ran errands for a couple hours just the two of us. I don't know if it was because I let him sit in the front seat, but the kid was cool to be with. No rolling eyes, rude tone, or arguing. Just him and me in the car, talking about learning to drive, what does the P, R, and N mean, doggy diapers and sperm. We talked about hiking harney peak-a friend told him he couldn't-I told him we would, as soon as it was warm enough. The hiking talk led us to my memories of hiking as a child-that is a whole other blog entry-and his papa. He misses his papa, I wish my dad could have heard the admiration and love in big fry's voice when he said "I love papa a lot, he is funny and smart, I admire him". Hmmm maybe I will email him the story right now, I think I should.

Anyway, thanks for the great day big fry, I know there is hope-for many things.

2 more days...

2 more days until the big jump, it looks to be a balmy 42! My goal of 101 jumpers for our them fell quite short, we have 30-one third, which is still awesome!! Our school raised about 20.00 per student which is so inspiring considering the economic times and alot of our families have needs of their own. We have many parents jumping and some community members so I am still super proud! Amazing what a group of people can do, pictures coming on Sunday or when I warm up.

For Bobbi-part 2
I don't make these with the bread coating though


http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fish-Tacos-with-Honey-Cumin-Cilantro-Slaw-and-Chipotle-Mayo/Detail.aspx

For Bobbi

Here is some love from our Heart day celebration:) The heart shaped meatloaf was small fry's idea.By the way the meatloaf tastes better than it looks in the picture. Hubby laughed at me when I wanted to put it on a different plate for presentation.

sad paper

Small fry has this idea in his head that origami is fun. He brings home books, we buy a kit, and extra funky specially made paper. He starts on his first creature. After about one fold I hear "moooommmmm I need help". I go to save the day, really how hard can folding paper be? Guess what? Pretty darn hard. After the first attempt-folding, creasing, unfolding more creasing-a little bit of scrunching, some choice words, I hand it to him "Hmm it doesn't really look like the picture". WHAT? This was two weeks ago, I conveniently "hid" the origami paper, which somehow found its way on the breakfast bar today. "Mooommmm can you help me do origami" which again translates into "Can you make me a dove?" I think I have met my creative match-origami ranks right up there with sewing

Big Fry

My big fry is going to drive me crazy! As we head into the second half of 5th grade I am getting more terrified of middle school. The kid is seriously moving backwards in the organization and school motivation department. He is continuously forgetting things that he needs for studying, getting discouraged when the assignment is hard AND when he doesn't bring the necessary materials home, and snappy when I try to help. Case in point, he tells me TODAY he needs materials for a scrapbook binder due on Tuesday-AFTER we had looked on the teacher's website and saw it was due-UMMMM was he going to tell me this on his own?? He enjoys getting good grades and is very proud of it. Of couse we have the usual "spring" parent teacher conference-for those select few students that teachers feel they need to absolutely meet with. (And not surprising small fry does NOT have a conference). His midterm stated "no academic or work skill concerns at this time" yet we are still meeting. Who knows. His level of rude tone and even a little absolute refusal is getting past the annoying stage. This weekend we have put the foot down and every rude remark, eye roll, whine is answered with a loss of privilege-the big one being a sleepover he really want to have tomorrow. As of right now it is no go and when he gets the final answer tomorrow it is going to UGLY, but my guess is a lesson well learned. We will see...

Running update

On Thursday after my fabulous appt, I felt so good I went for a run-2miles, I was not impressed with myself. Ugggg it just reinforced my thoughts about running. SO instead of getting discouraged I looked online for some hints. The big one was if you run until you are gasping-you probably won't try it again. Note to self don't do this. The second training tip was to go for distance or length of time, not for speed. So I tried again today, this time on the tread mill and going for longer time and distance. I made it 3 miles with only 3 small walking fast breaks. I am now a little more hopeful, it wasn't so terrible and hmmmm it actually felt a little...good?

Today

Today my friends is a wonderful, glorious day. Let me tell you why, today I finally heard the word cured! Do you know how much one little, one syllable word can sound so wonderful! No going back for anything next year, or the next one, or the next one. Not until 2013. It is funny I was thinking of many us reaching our 39 milestone with mixed emotions, but today I have no mixed emotions-I am 39 and proud of it! I know there is a reason I was able to find something that could have been so terrible so early-I am here for a purpose, whatever that may be.
I may be able to do my 4 miles today!! No wait I have that massage to go to first!!

A plodder becomes a runner

I really believe there are two kinds of people. Those who run and those who don't. Ok I know there are halfway runners, who do it because it is good for you and that is about it. I am not a runner or even a halfway runner. I am really a plodder. My body type and muscle type I truly believe is not a runner, but that of a plodder. There is no running long distances smoothly and lightly. My body and mind loves to lift weights-lots of them, spin, sprints, and fast paced camps. Not to mention running is hard on the back arthritis. I don't know if it is my middle finger lifting up to the February Funk, or the competive edge in me but I have committed myself to a group of gals from school who are running as a team in the Mickelson Trail Marathon. Of course my section is short, 4 miles. Scoff if you must you runners-I know that is a warm up for most but for me that is LONG. I measured it today from my house-really LONG. I read somewhere that you should try the exercise you really dislike-or is really hard for you, so your body and mind really have to focus and you can change it up. So here I am a plodder, changing it up. It was that or swimming...

I think if I watch this before I hit the pavement I might actually be a little motivated

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/nike-commercial-my-better-is-better/C8A8F1D942EB67D7BC22C8A8F1D942EB67D7BC22

February

February, I really hate February. I used to hate it when I was much younger in the teen years because I never had anyone to celebrate with (stupid I know, but those teenage hormones do weird things). I now hate February because no matter how hard I try or how many years go by my mind drifts back to my surgery. Stupid again I know. I went in last year totally not worried and came out not with terrible or even bad news, just not to my expectations.
So this year my mind dwells on the worst so I am not disappointed. This is an unhealthy pattern of mental behavior and I know it. I message a good friend, ALOT-about all my weird thinkings. About the other day when I thought I was having a heart attack (it was anxiety), or when my fingers were turning blue-thought it was the CT scan dye-turned out I was cold and dehydrated-I believe my good nurse friend called it "constricted". Should have shared that with the snake lover at my house he would have loved that.
So here I sit in my usual February Funk...just waiting for the pattern to change.

Big thoughts from a small fry...

Small Fry loves Diary of a Wimpy Kids book which are pretty trivial, not deep thinking. Small fry loves it so much he has the Do-it-yourself Diary of Wimpy Kid book. He has been working on it a little each night and the page he chose last night was "Your Top 5 Predictions" I thought I would share them-my big fry gets lots of credit for being the kind, deep thinker, but it seems small fry has some deep thoughts of his own.

Top 5 Predictions
1. People will stop the war
2. All people should be nice
3. People will stop using bad words
4. People will play fair
5. People that don't have homes should have homes

I could live with a future like this (ok, I may have to keep some of the bad words)

For a good cause...

It is winter and freezing and for the second year the school I am at will be pulling together a team for the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics (an organization very dear to my heart). Our theme this year is 101 Dalmations, I came up with this crazy theme, so now yours truly is Cruella-nominated unanimously by everyone. We also got so excited we thought we would try to get as close to 101 jumpers as possible-as if jumping wasn't crazy enough. If you want to support me check out the link below, I hope all that snow I have been wanting waits a little bit longer...

http://www.firstgiving.com/cherdaniel