I figured out emoji's!

Anyway,😉 I haven't talked a lot about it, but I am signed up to do the Northwest Passage Ragnar.  That is happening in exactly 2 weeks from today.  I've been pretty anxious because the team I'm on seems to be pretty loose and not good planners.  I know one person on the team, a coworker who asked me last year if I wanted to join her husband's team.  It's her first time as well, but I think that because her husband has done it several times, she's not so worried about it.  I didn't even get my runner number until a few weeks ago and that was super frustrating for me.  If you look at the legs . . . Do you all know what a Ragnar is??  Let me back up . . .

A Ragnar is a "relay race" of 200 miles that goes for 2 days or so.  You run with a team of 12 people and switch off running.  Each runner runs 3 legs of varying lengths.  On the page I linked above you can see the course and how Ragnar labels the legs from Easy to Very Hard.  So not knowing my runner number was giving me anxiety because I didn't know the difficulty level of what I needed to train for.  I finally got my runner number (Runner 3), which has a total mileage of 18 miles.  My longest leg is the first one at 8.3 with a difficulty level of Very Hard. 😲 I was looking at it yesterday trying to figure out what "very hard" meant and mapped it on Mapmyrun to see the elevation.

I was freaking out about the fact that this is 8 miles almost completely uphill but a good friend pointed out that it's a gradual uphill, especially at the beginning.  My friend kept telling me that I won't even notice it, but I think that I will.  Afterall, it's uphill, even if it's gradual. . .

My second leg is 6.6 miles and is labeled as "hard" but I've run all the roads that this leg is on, and I don't see how it's "hard."  I have wondered if it's labeled hard because the road has no shoulder and I think it's at night.  But the elevation isn't bad at all.

My last leg is labeled as "easy" and is only 3.1 miles.  I almost didn't include it in this blog, but thought some people might be interested.  I haven't even bothered to look at the elevation.  I suppose they could consider it easy simply because it's 3 miles but it's all uphill . . . I don't know. 

Also, I'm still debating the marathon in October.  This year I have not felt the desire to run any races.  I don't think I've done one.  And I'm not sure I want to run a marathon.  Once upon a time I wanted to get a sub-4 hour marathon time, but . . . I don't know if I care anymore.  However, I think that I should at least start training just in case I decide to do it.  Since I had this mindset today, I decided to figure out how many weeks until the marathon in October, and this week is 18 weeks, which is when training is supposed to start.  So I guess I need to figure out my training plan today.

Anyway, that's it for today.  😁

Just catching up

I never know how to start my blog.  When I was younger I wrote stories a lot, but I never knew how to start.  I always started a story with someone talking, every time.  I just couldn't figure out how to jump into a story.  I find that I have that same problem here.  One of the blogs I read (alongweighaway.blogspot.com) starts her blogs with "Well...here I am..." which I think is kinda cool to always start the same way.  

Anyway, Hi, how are you?  (I really wish I could use emoji's, that would have warranted an eye roll emoji).  =)  

So this last weekend was Father's Day.  We really didn't do much.  Damian gave Chris a hot tub for Father's Day, which now resides on our deck, which makes our deck much smaller.  It's an inflatable hot tub, so it's smaller than a regular one, but it still takes up space.  It took awhile to warm up the pool, at 8pm it was still only 80 degrees, and that is TOO cold!  Honestly, I'm kinda bummed that the hot tub has overtaken the pool, but seriously the weather went down from 90 degrees to 60ish.  That is a 30 degree drop, and very cold.  Way too cold to be in my 70 degree pool.  =(  According to my app it's not supposed to get warmer in the next 10 days, which makes me very, very sad.  

Anyway, (maybe I should start my blog with "Anyway," every time) yesterday was Maddox's birthday.  He's been counting down the days for awhile now, probably close to 3 months.  We didn't do anything special, I took him to McDonald's for breakfast and then he went to daycare for the day.  He played with his friend when we got home, I made him dinner of his choosing, he chose the easiest meal.  Seriously, egg noodles and eggs.  My mom used to make it occasionally, probably when we had no food, or she was being lazy.  All it is is cooking egg noodles, then putting them in a frying pan and scrambling eggs over them with salt and pepper, as an adult I added peas (gotta get the veggies in!)  So yesterday when I was thinking of cooking that I was trying to figure out how to "birthday it up" a little, so I added bacon and some pre-cooked shrimp and it turned out really, really good, but again, super easy.  Then he opened presents and played some more.  

I love how he's still wearing the "gear" and holding the gun from one of his gifts.  =)

I forgot to mention that he did a mile with me.  He asks me all the time, and I'm sooooo bad at remembering to tack on another half mile (the "longer" block) or mile (2 times around the "longer" block).  

I hate birthday parties.  I don't think I ever had one for Damian, and I know that Maddox has never had one.  I don't take my kids to birthday parties because I don't like to be stuck visiting with parents I don't know.  It's probably selfish, but oh well.  I did not go to parties growing up.  I had one in 2nd grade and that's it.  However, Maddox ended up with a little party last night.  He had a friend over, and his friend's sister joined us, and then Damian's girlfriend was there.  In my head it felt like a million kids (seriously only 3 kids and Damian's 21 year old gf).  When they left I felt so overwhelmed and drained I ended up in the hot tub.  It really was nice.  ; ) (My poor pool is so sad and lonely.)

This Friday would have been my parents' 50th anniversary.  I am so sad that my Mom is gone (I almost wrote "still gone").  I was really, really looking forward to saying that they had been married 50 years.  That doesn't happen any more.  Anyway, my dad is coming over the mountains for the weekend (staying with my sister).  We planned to do something on Friday to kinda get his mind off of it, so we are going to a Mariner's game (baseball), which I don't like baseball, but we'll have fun.  =)  Then they are all coming to my house on Saturday for dinner, kind of a birthday celebration for both Maddox and Chris (whose birthday is next Wednesday).  

Today is officially day 231 of my runstreak.  =)

Pool!!

So, let me tell you about my pool.  It's small, it's only 10 feet round and 3 feet deep.  Would I like a bigger pool?  Absolutely, I would love a bigger pool, however, I have a small backyard and when I measured early this spring, 10 ft was all I thought would fit.  But, for years I've been using a small kiddie pool.  If I'm lucky I can get 1 summer out of my kiddie pools.  Usually because they are inflatable and there are cats in the neighborhood (mine included) that jump on it and pop it.

You can see it there in the background over my right shoulder (left in the picture).  I would get some sort of floating device and float around in it as much as I could.  My backyard (and front yard) is on a hill, so it slopes down and I was lazy and didn't want to level the area, so one side would have about 6 inches of water and the other would have a foot or more.  But it worked okay.  

Two years ago I saw an inflatable hot tub in Walmart and I wanted it.  I was going to buy it.  Chris said no.  He said that the cats would pop that too, and where would we put it, blah, blah, blah . . . I researched them and reviews said that they are hard-sided inflatable, durable material that doesn't pop easily (unlike a kiddie pool).  I was going to buy one.  Chris said no.  I said it'd be perfect, Maddox could "swim," I would soak and we'd have a hot tub in the winter.  He said no.  I bought another kiddie pool (probably the one above in the background).  

However, this year I decided I was buying a pool  I didn't care what Chris said, I was buying a pool.  In fact, I don't think I even asked him, I just bought this one.  I bought it in March, it's been in the box in my living room since March.  Memorial Day weekend, it was supposed to be nice, I decided it was time to get the area ready and put the pool up.  Chris ended up with Friday off and decided he was going to work on leveling the ground. Our neighbor offered a rototiller, but Chris said he didn't want to bother getting it. He spent a lot of time shoveling dirt, for 3 days.  Damian ended up rototilling it on Monday . . . which really worked well.  

But we didn't get my pool up.  So I said "next weekend."  And then I went to eastern WA for my nephew's graduation and my family didn't want to put the pool up without me.  So last weekend I said rain or shine, that pool is getting put up.  Thankfully it was a nice weekend (because I would have been out in the rain putting it up anyway).  

This is the best picture I can find of the area.  That bush had to be trimmed back at least 3 feet, and all those branches above were trimmed as well.

I love it.  However, I want one bigger.  But, for this year, this will do.  I may end up with something bigger next year though.  ; )

Yesterday the weather was 90 degrees.  I ran in the morning (4:20am is early!!) so that I could NOT run in the heat of the day. 

It was so early that my solar lights were still on when I left the house.

And I got home as the sky was turning pink (no sun yet though).

I've been pretty bad at procrastinating my schoolwork lately, and I had a large assignment due yesterday but didn't start working on it until Tuesday, and then didn't do as much as I would have liked to because I was really frustrated.  Anyway, that meant that I was doing homework until 8pm (or later, not sure) last night.

But! I got to do it in comfy clothes with a glass of wine.  =)

Then I was sitting in the living room about 9pm not wanting to go to bed, but knowing that I needed to go to bed.  I was hot and I knew my bed would be hot.  And I got a great idea, why not go lay in my pool for a little bit. 

It was heaven! It felt so nice.  I floated around for maybe 45 min, and then went to bed.  It was late, but I was cool and I don't regret it at all. (I may regret the wine I drank though . . .)

Nothing super exciting

Well, I think it's been about a month since I last posted.  I promise I am still here.  I'm still running and I'm still eating good.  As of 2 weeks ago I had lost another 3 lbs, but I don't know that it will last through this week.  However, I am on day 224 of my running streak.  I even started a June running streak challenge "Streaking with the cool kids."  Someone I follow on Instagram posted it, so I thought I'm already streaking, I may as well do this.  There's prizes at the end.  =)

Not a lot has been happening in the last month, and yet a lot has happened.  =)

My nephew graduated high school 2 weeks ago.

I went to eastern WA for the weekend (the weekend after Memorial Day) for his graduation.  I enjoyed it, and wished it had been longer. 

Running in the middle of nowhere WA.

Trying red wine out of a black licorice "straw"

Last weekend we FINALLY got our pool up.  I'm soooooooo excited to have a pool, but I may have to beat kids off to get any time in it.  ; )

After setting up the pool, Chris decided he wanted a hot tub, so Damian is getting him an inflatable hot tub for Father's Day/birthday.  That will be nice.

This week is in the 70's and 80's (today may hit 90), so I'm super excited for the pool.  =)  Yesterday after my run I "fell" in, but it was really cold!

And that's the highlights of the last 4 weeks or so.  Nothing super exciting going on. . .