What's New...

Well I have been a bit disengaged from the family for the past six weeks. This is for two reasons. First work has been very busy. My responsibilities have increased, there are pressures from budget related issues and a variety of other special projects. This requires several additional night meetings and socializing with consultants. Second, I believe I am suffering from burnout. Probably related to work, but also related to having two type-a intense personality children - one of which is in the throws of the terrible twos. That being said I still play the leading role of "Mommy" in the hit new musical "This is my life". All of this is important to note because it explaints why it's difficult to give a family update. I don't really have my finger on the pulse at the moment and there's not really an end in site. In fact things are on the verge of getting much more complicated at work which will mean additional time restraints, meetings and stress. I am riding this wave as it comes so I have no idea what will happen. Now I can give you a peripheral update about what I know of the family living in the house I share with them.

Madeline started VBS this week. What you don't know is that I just took a thirty minute hiatus from this post because at the moment I typed the first sentence of this paragraph I realized that I only had about 20 minutes to pick Maddie up from kids club and get her heiny to VBS. See how districted I am! Anyway, VBS is going well. This year we had to arrange someone to take Maddie back to kids club after VBS ended. I don't have the latitutde with my schedule like I used to. Madeline seems to be enjoying VBS. This morning when I dropped her off I leaned over to give her a goodbye kiss and she actually cough/sneezed right in my mouth. Probably the most disgusting thing that happened to me this month. Maybe the last year.

Annalise is back to school, after a one-week break, and having a good time. She is starting to whine, hits when she's ticked off, and still loves to destroy things, especially smashing food when she's bored with eating. She really enjoys the outisde and will take off without looking back, although that is nothing new.

Ryan is busy with work, arts council and college of architecture alumni association. He's planning a big arts bash in September and will be busy all summer with arts activities and participating in the variety of city festivals in order to promote the new council. His new-ish job at work appears to be going well.

Like I mentioned before I am swamped, in a good way, but busy nonetheless. I continue to run and am training for a full marathon. I've tentatively marked my calendar for a marathon in NY, one hour north of the city. I plan to spend a week with Mona in NY and run the marathon. All subject to change based on whichever way the wind blows. I will visit Mona this year however, now that Annie is weaned. (She has not asked to nurse for several days) woohoo!

Toilet seat ring

I just remembered a funny story. So, most of you know that I am quite petite. Both in stature and frame. I weigh about 110 pounds and am 5'4" tall. Recently during our visit to IA I used my Aunt Babes toilet. Now I have to tell you that I was just going tinkle and not attempting any crazy acrobatics. Regardless, the toilet seat ring FELL OFF. I broke the ring right off the the toilet. One isolated incident might make sense but less than a week later I broke another toilet seat ring right off the toilet. I think it was at our gym. It doesn't make a girl feel good to know that she was responsible for breaking TWO rings off toilets. I want to say there was a third but right at the moment I cannot recall. I just thought that was a funny thing to share and if I were larger I might not have had the courage to share. So there you have it folks, it's not the person but the ring!

My little haircut

Of course if you've never seen Bob and Larry's Veggie Tales about the "little hairbrush" you probably wouldn't get the title. It's supposed to be funny with a little veggie tale theme song as you say it.

Anyway, Annie had her hair cut yesterday by a really BAD hairdresser from our place. They charge very high prices which would make one assume that you're getting at least a little quality. All of our regular hair dressers were unavailable so we settled for "Rachael" who did a real wack job on Annie's hair. Bella will be fixing it as soon as we get in there. That being said, Annnie was very UNhappy about the idea of having something cut off her body. She told me she was scared, that she didn't want her hair cut, and she cried A LOT. Finally I told her that she was NOT going to have her hair cut. She immediately quit crying and, while I was holding her, Rachael cut her hair. Annie must have figured out what was going on at some point, but didn't seem to mind. She still refused to sit in the chair, but finally stood in the chair and allowed Rachael to make her wack job a little less wacky. Still needs to be fixed. :)

Weaned

I forgot to post about this a week ago but Annie is officially weaned. She still nursed once or twice per day off and on, but she is officially done. I told her that she's a big girl now and she doesn't need to nurse anymore. She was not very happy about that, but didn't throw a big tantrum over it, which told me that she was ready. She still asks about it everyday and I just tell her we don't do that anymore. We've replaced it with "hugging and cuddling" and she's okay with that. So on Friday May 15, 2009 Annie finally gave up nursing. THANK GOD! :)

Recital and anniversary

Yeterday we celebrated two things at the Horner house. We celebrated our elleven year anniversary and the culmination of this year's dance class at Madeline's dance recital. There to celebrate with Madeline was Rich and Deb, Mary and Joyce. The recital went well and we all headed off to Ted and Wally's for ice cream after the show. Madeline got a fever yesterday morning. She's been feeling crummy ever since. She did great at the show regardless of her virus. I hope she's feeling better today. It's been a lovely weekend. It did rain a little yesterday but they were only short scattered showers that were between sunny beautiful patches of weather.

The garden is going well. We are a little behind planting beans and peas. Ryan needs to install some additional planting beds. The peaches look fantastic. There are probably more than 100 peaches on the tree and they range in size from an olive to a large marble. Maybe even a little bigger. There are several pears on the pear trees this year too. The blackberries are beginning to bloom, the strawberries are getting bigger, the grapes are growing like crazy. Blueberries are blooming and the raspberries are really taking off. The weather has been perfect for the garden too. Things are looking well on that front.

The storm shelter is not quite completed yet, though it is close. Some additional landscaping was done when we came back from Iowa. Gina was so kind and gave us several splits from her garden. We all had such a lovely time in Mt. Pleasant.

Running is going well except Friday I got a bad blister from a pair of work shoes. It actually ripped the skin right off my foot and is still hurting. I ran yesterday which must have aggrivated it further. I am sitting here in my running gear contemplating whether or not I should run because the throbbing from my foot hurts so bad. I really need to keep running though. I may walk a little to see how things go and make my decision then.

Tulips

We're ending our visit to IA tomorrow. We enjoyed Pella's tulips yesterday and spent lots of time with family between yesterday and today. Tomorrow we'll have our last hurrah and head home. I have pictures to post when I get home, if I have time to post them.

All the family is doing well. Babe is getting along nicely. Pat and Kent are busy and doing well between County Board duties and preservation commission fun. Tom and Gina are also busy and getting into the garden season, morrel hunting and maybe some stained glass work. Tom and I played pool and I only had two balls left when he won. This was very impressive for my limited pool talent.

I haven't gotten to run yet but perhaps tomorrow morning I will be able to run. I doubt it though so I will be spending the better part of next week getting back into a training routine. I want to run another half marathon in a week. I am a little concerned because I haven't been able to train but even if I cannot do the half, I may do the 10k run, which is 6.2 miles.

13.1

That's how many miles I ran in the half-marathon race today. I finished in 2 hours and 20 minutes, which is what I had assumed it would take. I was pleased to be in under 11 minutes per mile. I thought about my parents a few times along the way. Today, I ran for them.

That's a heck of a long way to run, by the way, all in a row. The nice thing about running that long is that you have a long time to think. I enjoyed the run until the 12 mile mark. Then things got to be very discouraging. As ridiculous as this may sound, I was pretty convinced around 12.5 miles that I would not be able to finish. I was trying to tell myself, at the time, that it's pretty stupid to think that I couldn't make it another stinking half mile. After all, I'd already run 12.5 miles.

When the road split and the full marathoners went on to run another 13.1 miles I thought to myself "how in the world can they do it?" I'd like to try. I need to increase my pace though and figure out how to prevent these ****ing blisters. I can't imagine what would happen to my feet if I ran the full.

You ask: "what does someone look like after they've run a half marathon?" Something like this:

Something occurred to me while I was running and perhaps it takes having almost two and a half hours to reflect on things in order to figure something like this out. My whole life, in general terms, I've followed the rules, stayed the course and done what I am supposed to. I have been careful to make the right decision, be highly logical, maintain high ethics and be an all-around dudley do-right. In the past year I've had to think more critically about situations at work that may not follow the same path. Through this process of understanding politics and when is the most appropriate time to do what is right versus doing what is mostly right, or partially right I've had the opportunity to consider how this concept applies to my own life. What I figured out today is that I am tired of being perfect. I'm tired of doing everything right. I don't want to make the most logical choice 100% of the time. Sometimes I just want to do something that *I* want to do and I don't care anymore if it isn't logical or right. I suppose one may find a variety of terms to describe this self evaluation/realization but for now I am just going to go with the flow and see where I lead. Carpe Diem.