The English Geek

Weekend

This weekend

• We had leftover chicken curry for dinner on Friday. My boys love my chicken curry. I like it but I feel like I'm missing a secret ingredient...it seems a little bit flat to me. I've started joking about getting a job at our favorite Indian restaurant just so I can learn what the secret ingredient is.
• On Friday night, all of my kids were gone. Haley was with her boyfriend, Jake was hanging out with his friends, Nathan was at a scout camp out, and Kaleb was having a sleep over at his cousin's house (in preparation for an exciting Saturday at the dinosaur exhibition). It was the strangest feeling!
• I finished cutting out all the squares for the quilt I'm working on, and got things pinned together. And I started piecing squares together. It will go quickly now. I'm trying to decide if I have the patience to quilt this or if I should have it quilted. (I will need patience because it will be a thick quilt.) Thoughts?
• We started getting caught up on The Game of Thrones. I've read the first book in this series and we watched the first two seasons, but I've forgotten who's who. I might need a GoT Cliff Notes summary.
• Sunday night's dinner left me all kinds of discouraged. I made brown rice and chicken, which is, true, one of my go-to meals. But when Someone complained about "can't we have something else?" and Someone else said "This rice is not soft enough" and No One said "Thanks for dinner Mom"...I don't know. I know I sound whiny. I'm just tired of Dinner Drama.
• I was late to church because I totally forgot I was in charge of primary sharing time. Cue guilt.
• I resumed reading Sweet Tooth, which I'd put away because it just wasn't grabbing me. On page 82 or so it says "This is where the story really starts" and I thought...OK, why didn't you just start here then, Ian McEwan? I am hoping it all comes together and I feel satisfied at the end.
• I stayed up late on Saturday night and finished Finding Francesca.
• I was up late because I wanted to finish my book and because I was waiting for Haley, who was at prom:
  
  

Doesn't she look pretty? She designed her outfit around the cameos she's wearing. They belonged to my mother-in-law. I LOVE that she wanted to do this! She had two white lace dresses she couldn't choose between and only decided on this one about two hours before the dance. (I'll just return the other one.)

How was your weekend?

the Past Ten Days

I'm still mired in work. Feeling a little bit overwhelmed, in fact, AND I missed a deadline because I wrote the date down wrong. But it's a good busy, and I am grateful.

But I also don't want to completely neglect my blog. So! A recap. During the past ten days I've:

• Eaten jelly beans until I gave myself a headache.
• Made M&M cookies with the spring colored M&Ms. Why do they taste better in pastel colors?
• Finished ten layouts.
• Almost finished the book The End of Your Life Book Club.
• Took the boys to see Jack the Giant Slayer. We liked it.
• Picked up dinner at Taco Bell twice. {hanging head in shame.}
• Visited two people in two different hospitals, each recuperating from surgeries.
• Shopped at Nordstrom! I miss having one close to me.
• Totally failed on my pi day goal of actually making a pie. The rasperries and blackberries are still in the fridge.
• Made green pancakes for St. Patrick's day. Except I didn't have anything but some very pale green food coloring, so they were sort of...well, vaguely green in an ugly sort of way.
• Realized I totally dropped the ball with one of my friends. I'm SO SORRY, Jamie!
• Made another pot of broccoli soup. (It's been my go-to meal lately even though only Jake and I really, really like it. But we both really, really like it.)
• Just about got all the stuff for Easter baskets. I still need to find a package of Army men, which are suprisingly difficult to come by.
• Made ten layouts.
• Ran outside a few times; suffered through some treadmill workouts; missed completely my sculpting class.
• Hated my lingering cough and thought about getting an antibiotic. We'll see if it's still around next week.
• Just about decided that I need to make another visit to the dentist; my stretch of capped tooth-filling-filling feels completely normal (FINALLY) but the teeth above them hurt.
• Had to run to the grocery store at the very last minute because I thought I still had a bunch of cans of coconut milk but I was out. Buying coconut milk at the last minute when you can't find it on sale is painful.
• Averted a puking crisis at church (not, surprisingly, one of my kids puking this time!)
• Listened to Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, 10,00 Maniacs, Adele, Metric, Snow Patrol, The Black Keys, and  Alphaville.
• Had a good, long, ugly cry over THIS post Becky wrote.
• Squeezed in two episodes of The Walking Dead. I am not loving this season.
• Took care of Jake, who caught my cold.
• Slept not even close to enough.
• Wrote none of the blog posts knocking around in my head.
• Texted back & forth with Chris. I needed that!
• Under extreme duress, got rid of our home phone. I am NOT HAPPY about this choice; I hate being tied to a cell phone all the time. Plus, I loved our actual home phone number. So if you need me, call my cell. I might know where it is. (But probably not.)
• Did a little bit of family history research.

How have YOU been?

Scarce.

This week I had an unexpected {scrapbooking } opportunity pop up, but it's a tight turn around. So if I'm scarce around here, you'll know why. As is my wont, without much time for blogging I have a ton of blogging topics tossing around in my head:

1. My father's faith.
2. A rant about feminism and my religion.
3. One about parenting older teenagers.
4. February in review (yes, I know: we're halfway through March.)
5. Three book notes: the two Anna books by Kendare Blake, Refuge, and Into Thin Air.
6. The Terry Tempest Williams writing workshop I attended in February (again, I know: sigh)

But I've got to get this other stuff done as well! So I just wanted to note a couple of things about my life right now:

• I've had a little bit of writing success! I can't share the details yet...but it's rewarding to hear a "yes." (Also hard to write a bio note when you haven't really published much. It looks ok if you're 20 or 25 or maybe even 30. But 40? I feel lame.)
• This week Nathan decided that the pantry was bugging him. So he cleaned, reorganized, and wiped down shelves. I'm fairly certain that this proves who his Daddy is! :)
• Both Nathan and Jake are in track right now. It's been fun to see how their track personalities differ. Nathan likes the shorter distances, Jake goes a little bit longer. They both like the high jump! This year they have a jumping coach (last year they didn't), which has made a huge difference for Jake's confidence.
• Speaking of Jake. We had a conflict (via texting!) this week that was resolved so smoothly. He gave me a key to his psyche that I think will help me continue to understand him and to know how to respond without causing sparks (but still get my point across).
• Haley has become my kid I hardly ever see. Between track (she runs the mile and the 800 and HATES the jumping events), school, work (she is doing her pharm tech internship), and boyfriend, she's gone a lot. I think this is the reverse of how, when you're into the very end of your pregnancy it's hard to sleep---your body acclimatizing you for what's to come. Maybe the busy schedule is preparing me for when she'll be off to college in the fall? This is such a strange phase of life for me.
• I am feeling how Kaleb is turning from little kid to kid kid. He took a bath last night and it had been so long I had to show him how to push the plug up! (It sticks.) (And this isn't because he hasn't washed for years but because he usually showers.) It reminded me of how the bathtub was one of his happiest places as a baby; when he was grumpy (which was often!), I'd put him in the tub with some bubbles and his collection of rubber ducks and the grumpies would wash away. I am at peace with being on the babyless side of life, mostly. As at peace with it as I will ever be. But it is this strange sadness, knowing that my baby isn't anything like a baby anymore.
• Kendell spoke in church on Sunday. His talk was on the ten commandments. I'm as glad that it's done as he is, as yes: I did help him figure out what to say. It's interesting to me how differently people react over speaking in church. It's not a big deal for me (in fact, I actually enjoy it), I think because of my years of teaching. Kendell doesn't really get nervous during the talking part, he just doesn't like the preparation. And his sister told us that she absolutely refuses to speak in church at all, ever. I'm not judging. It's just interesting to see how people deal with it.
• I am finally feeling mostly-better after a fierce cold this week. Other than going to church to listen to Kendell's talk, I didn't do much other than lie in bed, reading and sleeping, for three days. I'm hoping today might just be the day I put my running shoes back on, as I can now take a deep breath without coughing!

OK, work calls. I wouldn't be sad if I were distracted here & there by comments. What is good in your world right now?

a month of Winter

January 2013 in review:

• More than anything, this was a month of winter. Here in Utah we had record-breaking lows for 18 days, the worst smog inversion ever, and plenty of snow. The snow and even the cold temps were exactly right in my book. The smog, on the other hand, plays dirty tricks on me. I don't like it one bit.
• Also the month of dental work. Haley, Jake, and Nathan each had cavities (Jake's was his very first!). I went in for what I desperately hoped was only an old, cracked filling but was, in fact, a deeply cracked tooth. I didn't want a crown but I got one anyway. While they were in there already they fixed another cracked filling right next to the crown and then discovered that the tooth next to that one needed a filling. The plus side: all of my silver filings except one have been replaced with white ones. The down side: my lower left teeth still hurt. (Cue tooth dreams.)
• The Bigs all got straight As on their report cards. Go Bigs! (Cue a trip to Krispy Kreme.)
• Haley started working as an intern at a pharmacy. 180 hours later (sometime in March or April) she'll be able to take the pharmacy technician exam and then hopefully find a job. Also: she has a boyfriend. And for all the moms who have asked me in concerned voices if I am OK with that, let me just say: I am OK with that. I am actually thrilled with it. It is OK, in my mind, for teenagers to be in relationships.
• One morning, Jake ended up being late to school because we were fighting with the printer. (We desperately need a new laser printer, but I can't decide which one to get.) I ran the carpool in to the elementary school and then came back to pick him up—and I couldn't get my van up the driveway! It was a sheet of ice. So I left it on the street and went inside to put actual clothes on (one cannot check one's junior high student in at the office when one is still wearing pajamas and slippers, although one can drive the carpool in such attire!), giving Jake five gleeful moments of sliding down the driveway. He thought it was the best day ever!
• Nathan was totally excited for his Klondike. I don't get camping in the snow, but I will happily send him out! (Well, not really happily. I worry every second when either boy is gone to a scout campout as there are no women involved to keep things safe & practical.) Despite single digits, the anticipation was richly rewarded. He came home entirely wet!
• Kaleb hates coats more than anyone I've ever known. So our cold snap was tough for him. We had quite a few "I hate coats!" grumpy mornings.
• I read The Fault in Our Stars, When Katie Wakes, the Best American Poetry 2011, Charity Girls and some essays. I made progress on Kaleb and Jake's quilts; I made 12 layouts. I ran a dismal 24 miles and managed to make it to my sculpting class only twice. (On the other side of that equation, I think I drank about 5 gallons of hot chocolate.) I took almost no photos. I wrote the WRITE Saturday post for WCS and I'm thinking about doing a follow-up post  here about my scrapbooking process.

How was your January?

Celebrating

The Blueness continues. It is a combination of this winter we are having, which started out with lots of lovely snow (which doesn't make me blue), but then turned into freezing temps (it is rare for Utah to be this cold, single degrees and lower) which turned into an inversion. The painful cold is one thing but the smog eating away at the mountains and dirtying lungs...it makes me a little bit crazy. Plus, I've only run outside once this month, on January 10 when, just before a little storm, a wind kicked up and cleaned out the air. I've done some treadmill running (kill me now) and some miles on the track at the Rec (6 1/5 laps per mile there, which is frustratingly hard to keep track of), but entirely not enough exercising.

I can't wait to run outside.

My friend Karen had a post on her blog yesterday about celebrating, so in an effort to pinken up, here are some things I am celebrating:

1.  This is the view from my office window:

(not properly exposed I know. I was lazy.)

Trees with fresh snow and more coming down. Big white flakes falling hard and fast. It seems like everyone is complaing about more snow, but I am, officially, not complaining. I've never in my life made it to my personal snow threshold (when one cries out "enough snow!!!"). Even if I have to drive somewhere.

2. It's Wednesday and I don't have to work again until the weekend.

3. I have a few layouts to make for my Saturday post on WCS. I love sitting down to scrap!

4. Kaleb's dinosaur quilt is just about ready to be quilted. All of the pieces for Jake's quilt are cut. And I know what I am going to do for Haley's graduation quilt. (All of which makes me think I should also sew something quilty for Nathan!)

5. Hot chocolate in the Eeyore cup I bought in Disneyland. The dark, good Starbucks hot chocolate (which no one but me likes, so the can is lasting forever!), with a splash of half-and-half. And marshmallows.

6.  Our anniversary is coming up next month. Trying to decide how to properly celebrate it in February. ("Let's go somewhere tropical, with perhaps a jungle hike and some ruins to explore" is my real answer, but, alas, that money will be spent on a new roof in the spring. WHEEEEE.)

7.  Everyone getting straight As on their report cards!

8. Haley's upcoming choir concert. While I am annoyed at some of the choices her teacher has made, I'm excited to listen to her sing.

9. My kitchen is clean. Also, I found a startling but altogether effective consequence for yesterday's messy basement. No yelling or long discussions or cheese-throwing involved.

10. The cold sensitivity in the crown I had a few weeks ago is starting to go away. And my bite seems to be returning to normal.

11.  Gloves, scarves, boots, sweaters. I'm not tired of any of them yet.

12. When the snow slows down I'm going to go outside. Outside! No running but I am going to shovel the driveway. Kendell usually beats me to it, but I enjoy shoveling snow.

What are you celebrating right now?

Five on Friday.

1. Haley started doing her internship for her pharm tech certification this week. (She took a night class last semester for the coursework.) She has to do 180 (unpaid!) hours at a pharmacy, and she got a spot at Ridley's. (We went to every pharmacy we could think of, and they all either already had an intern, didn't take under-21-interns, or didn't do internships at all.) She wanted Target but she's really liking Ridley's. It is a strange experience, watching my daughter moving forward. Bittersweet but rewarding all at once. I am so proud of her!
2. Yesterday my mom called to see if I could come help her clean out a room in her house because the painter is going to come this weekend. (She wants to sell her house and move closer to the rest of us, to something smaller, but she has a lot of stuff to sift through before that happens!) Then she told me her furnace wasn't working. I helped her with a reliable heating & air guy (the people she called told her she'd need a new furnace; my awesome & amazing neighbor was able to repair a part for less than $200) and then Kendell & I went out in the late afternoon to help her with the room. While we were decluttering I found some old school photos of me that I hadn't seen in years, the nativity from my childhood which my mom thought Dad had thrown away, and my Swatch. I'm ridiculously excited for all of them, but I have a half-formed blog post in my head about the Swatch and how rooms hold the ghosts of memories.
3. We are totally socked in here: the air pollution is thick. It makes me anxious on so many levels, but here is something I can't understand: all the high school track coaches sending their track teams out to run. It seems thoroughly irresponsible to me.
4. Today was a textile day. As all five of my family members had mentioned something to me about laundry over the past 48 hours, I decided it was time to get some done. So today I didn't ever even get out of my pajamas. I just sorted clothes, folded clothes, sorted socks, cleaned out Kaleb's dresser, and babysat the washing machine. In between laundry I worked on Kaleb's dinosaur quilt. (Yes! the very one I started working on in June---of 2010. I know!) I had all the blocks sewn into strips, so today I sewed the strips together and added the border. When I finish this blog post I'm going to put the last piece onto the (pieced) back and then hopefully I'll get it pinned together this weekend so I can quilt it on Monday. Only...I'm not certain I've decided how to quilt it, or what color of thread to use. At any rate, even though I didn't balance the checkbook or investigate flights to Miami or finally figure out which laser printer to buy, I did feel like I was productive today.
5. Which is a marked change from the rest of the week. Between the air pollution, the cold (it's been in the single digits and the negatives here, which is COLD for us), and not sleeping well (I've been taking Trazadone for awhile to help my sleep, but I'm trying to not take it for awhile to see if it's making my brain fuzz worse), all I've wanted to do was sit around drinking hot chocolate. Like...cups of it, every day. And very little exercise. Maybe next week I'll find some motivation somewhere.

How was your week?

Twelve Favorite Layouts of 2012

Last January I noticed plenty of other scrappy blogs with a "favorite layouts of 2011" post and I thought two things: 1. I want to do that! and 2. I have no idea which layouts I made this year. I made a little spreadsheet and kept track of all of my layouts for 2012, not just for this post but for submissions and online postings and to keep things even between kids. AND it made it easy to write this post! (I am following in the footsteps of people like Paula and Celeste and Vivian  and Valerie except I did 12 instead of ten just because I couldn't narrow it down any further. If you've done a favorites-of-2012 I want to see yours too!)

In no particular order:

1. This is my last layout of 2012, and as one's last layout must be one's favorite (until one makes a new layout) it must be on the list!

2. uses one of my favorite paper lines this year from Basic Grey. Plus I love the quote (I actually used it on 2 different layouts!)

3. This is my attempt at following the sunburst trend. It fit in nicely with my current obsession for using scraps.

4. I liked how my embellishments turned out, but mostly I love the fact that I got two memories (one of mine, one of Kaleb's) down on a single layout. Plus I like that you can see the drawing he made of his name hanging on the fridge behind him.

5. When I was gluing down the green part of the quote I did it in the wrong direction, so then I had to re-cut it out, only I didn't have any more of that specific green paper. So the greens don't match exactly...but this layout still makes me happy for its cluster of embellishments, which I'm not really great at doing. The background comes from the same Basic Grey line as #2. I might have bought 8 sheets of it I love it so much...

 

6. This photo is one I found in an old photo album that my uncle brought to us on the day my dad died. In the photo, my mom is pregnant with me. PREGNANT WITH ME. I can't say how happy I am to have this picture. Look at the expression on my dad's face...like he's still gobsmacked by the fact that this gorgeous woman married him!

7. Sometimes a bunch of supplies from different manufacturers manages to all work together, and that happened with this layout. I loved how all the oranges and greys (one of my current favorite color combinations) all work together, and plus: those foam stickers (spelling "Nathan") always make me happy when I use them. (I need to get some more in fact.)

8. This was in my negative-letters-cut-on-a-tag stint. I made several layouts with this sort of embellishment. (Words as embellishments always make me happy.) Plus, those orange alphas ("winning")? Perhaps my favorite alpha of all time.

9. The subway art with the Adele quote is perhaps my favorite thing I've done with my Silhouette.

10. It's not often I dream about scrapbooking. But I dreamed that strip of stamped and colored images. Is that weird? I woke up one morning with the image in my head and then I set out to reproduce it. I had to try a couple of different things before I got the look I wanted.

11. I had those brackets (around the 2012) sitting on my scrapbooking table for months waiting for the right layout. I might have planned the entire layout just to use them. (And, you have no idea the efforts I went to to get this photo of Jake...he is not a fan of smiling in pictures.)

12. In real life, the silhouette of Nathan isn't quite so dark, and the text is brighter. Despite the fact that the twine wave took me awhile, this layout came together so quickly since the photo and the journaling were processed at the same time. I just had to stick everything down!

Did you write a "2012 favorites" post? Link me up! (even if it's not of the scrapbooking variety. I confess I also have a "2012 favorite books" post planned too!)

Looking Backward Before I Turn Around

Most of Monday we spent taking down the Christmas decorations. I don't love this part of the year, as it always makes me melancholy: I love my Christmas things, and I miss the cozy feeling they give my house, and putting them away means yet another Christmas has passed away. Maybe because really, 2012's December was just a good one, but my usual way of cheering myself up on de-Christmasing day didn't work. Usually, as I'm putting away ornaments and carefully bubble wrapping nativities and making sure I found every. last. holiday towel, I perk up a little bit by imagining what I might be like in 11 months from now, when I get the decorations out again. What will I accomplish over the year? How will I change?

But it didn't work this year. Instead, I felt like I'd already let my end-of-November-2013 self down. Like I'll get there and she'll say, as she's unwrapping nativities and getting ornaments out of boxes, here it is, another year almost over, and everything is the same. I didn't accomplish much. Which of course says quite a bit about  how I feel about my 2012 accomplishments...nothing extraordinary.

I'm still a little bit blue I think.

I was talking to Kendell about this later that night, and he said "but you accomplished a lot last year!" and I said "what?" and he said, "well, you fed and clothed and kept on track the kids" and I felt a little glimmer of lightness so I said "what else?" and he said "you ran a lot." And then I decided not to keep asking because what if he ran out of things to say?

So I decided to put it all in a blog post. Not in a braggy way, but just to remind myself that 2012 wasn't a total wash. A year in review of sorts, I suppose, to give me something to build on for January:

• washed approx. 260 loads of laundry
• cooked close to 300 dinners
• took 2 vacations wherein no one was lost, kidnapped, drowned, or injured
• 11 trips to the dentist (Jake's is today)
• approx. 5000 photographs
• got Haley signed up for college
• lived two months without eating sugar
• wore all black for an entire month
• discovered a new favorite restaurant
• helped Kendell, Haley, Jake, Nathan, and Kaleb with homework
• ran approx. 450 miles
• made 114 scrapbook layouts
• taught one Big Picture class
• wrote an eZine article for Ella
• wrote 3 book reviews for the Provo-Orem Word, two of which were nominated for reader's favorites
• worked approx. 1000 hours at the library
• went on 6 hikes
• read 20-ish books
• ran 2 half marathons, one 5k, and 1 Ragnar relay
• put in 40 volunteer hours at Kaleb & Nathan's school
• made 8 baby quilts as gifts
• wrote eleven Write Saturdays and hosted the blog on 2 different weeks for WCS

And even though there are many other goals I didn't accomplish ("publish something" being the biggest one), I suppose I need to get over my blueness and realize I did at least do something!

How as your 2012?

Currently: October 29

• Humming my October 29 theme song, Susan Vega's "Left of Center."
• Drinking hot chocolate and wishing I hadn't scalded my tongue.
• Worrying over my Write Now! class, which starts on Thursday—will anyone sign up? If they do will they be happy with the class?
• Working on a long to-do list: schedule dentist appointments, go to the fabric store, get a copy of my birth certificate, go to the bank, finish a layout, swing by the scrapbook store, go to Target, and probably 123 other things I am forgetting.
• Wondering what else I am forgetting—my brain fuzz feels especially bad right now.
• Reading the fantasy novel Tigana, which I started as an audio book that I listened to while driving last week, and deciding that while I like audio books, I still love true books better.
• Hobbling around. My legs are sore from the race, my back is sore from carrying the back pack in Disneyland, and my shoulder is sore from being crunched by Jake when we were riding Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.(tee hee.)
• Wishing Kendell had brought the camera to Saturday's finish line.
• Remembering myself 22 years ago today. (It's a long story.)
• Beginning the process of doing something that has both thrilled and terrified me for nearly 22 years, and hoping I am making the right choice. (Forgive my crypticness!)
• Getting off the computer so I can get stuff done!

What's current in your world?

Whirlwind Week

You know that feeling you have when you walk on the rolling walkways in an airport, when you're going faster than you could on your own and the windows beside you continue to hold still, so if the walkway is long enough you almost get dizzy from the contrast of speed and stillness, of moving and not moving?

Yes, that. That feeling is exactly how my last eight days have felt. Nearly too fast for me to fully grasp. Like this:

• Saturday I was up by seven because I wanted to get the house clean before we left on our trip. You know how you think, ah, it'll only take a few hours, and then all of a sudden it's 11:00 p.m. and you still didn't finish everything? Yep. I did get quite a few pockets of clutter cleaned, though. Got everything packed and organized and into the car, ready for the next day.
• On Sunday we got up early and were on the road to California by 7:15. By "we" I mean Jake, Nathan, Kaleb, and me; Haley and Kendell both had classes they couldn't miss. Four of us meant we could take the car instead of the van (a blessing, really, with gas at $4.70 in some places). It's a little bit gutless, the Corolla, so along the long hills I felt like I was pushing the car up the incline. It was a strange drive; along the way I dodged an actual, real, enormous tumbleweed; a black, bulging garbage bag which I hope held garbage and not body parts; a truck topper (you know, the thing you put on top of the bed of your truck to turn it into a camper? just lying there at an angle on the freeway); an entire tire; a garbage can; and, just by the Scipio exit, cows. We made it though!
• Monday: Disneyland. It opened at 10:00 so we could sleep in a little bit, but my inability to sleep well in a hotel coupled with Kaleb's sturdy internal clock meant I was up at 6:30 anyway. We do amusement parks as thoroughly as we can, meaning we're there when it opens and we stay until it closes, trying to get in as many rides as possible.
• Tuesday: Disneyland. The hotel we stayed at is about one mile from the Disneyland gate, but we walked past the Monorail station. Since we didn't quite make it out of our rooms in time to be at the gate when it opened, we rode the Monorail into Disney instead. Then we ran to Space Mountain (my favorite Disney ride) and rode it three times, the line was so short.
• Wednesday: Disneyland. We used our Magic Morning pass to get into the park at 7:00. Which meant we were up EARLY.
• Thursday: we didn't really have to be anywhere, but we wanted to go to the beach. So we didn't sleep in, but got up, ate, packed, made a side trip to Target, and then found Newport beach. You might be from Utah if you spread out your beach towel just right, sit down, and then start thinking....hmmm, I don't remember the beach being this stinky and then realize that you've set yourself up twenty feet from an enormous and very dead seagull. Moving towel...
• Thursday afternoon: We left the beach at 3:15, stopped for a quick bite, and headed to Vegas. Oh. My. Goodness. This was the worst drive I think I've ever managed. The second we got on the freeway we were in traffic and the traffic lasted all the way to the other side of the San Bernardino mountains. Past Victorville. Then when we got to Nevada, there was construction and an accident in Primm and construction by Jean and another accident outside of Vegas. It took us SEVEN HOURS to drive 271 miles. I was a mess by the time we made it to Circus Circus!
• Friday: I did sleep in a little bit on Friday. The Circus Circus rooms were surprisingly nice—remodeled and clean and spacious, which helped me not feel hotel anxiety. Plus Jake very kindly entertained Kaleb by watching a movie with him—they used the laptop and headphones so I didn't hear a thing. Once I woke up (at the oh-so-late hour of 8:30), everyone showered and we left. We went to NY Pizza & Pasta, a little restaurant we discovered when we were in Vegas in June and the kids have been talking about ever since, then hit the road. The drive was both traffic- and weird-things-to-dodge free!
• Back in Utah at about 6:45, I got some laundry started, called my health insurance to sort out a prescription problem, cleaned out the car, and then drove to Lehi with Kendell so I could pick up my race packet. Ate dinner at Thai Village, came home and got ready for my race in the morning.
• On Saturday I was up at 5:15, stressing about what to run in. Becky picked me up so we could run the Halloween Half marathon together. As I had only run a total of THREE TIMES this month, and as I was pretty much running on empty by that point, I had fairly low expectations of my race: run the damn thing and finish under two hours. My final time: 1:59:24.
• Kendell had to be somewhere at 11:30, so I grabbed my finish-line water and fairly lame bag of chips and we rushed off from the finish line. I showered and we ran to Costco and then he dropped me off at work. After work we hung out with the plumber! because our toilet was leaking, and then we went to dinner with a friend. And then I could relax, at last.

Last night when I tucked Kaleb in to bed, I asked him to not wake me up this morning. He obliged, I slept until 9:15, and even though I'm sore almost everywhere, I feel better for a good night's sleep. I feel, in fact, like I have stepped off the rolling walkway. Normal speed ahead.

(Except for: Halloween. and the quilting projects I need to do. and then Thanksgiving. and then Christmas shopping and decorating and...)