new bus driver in the family

Hey!  Now Laura is a bus driver too!!

Well, it's official now, we really are American suburban parents.  I believe that owning a vehicle like this legally obligates us to go on road trips, play soccer, and (hopefully) go wine tasting (that last bit is with friends, not with the kids).

feeling burdened

Overwhelmed with work right now.  I have been asked to assist on two more projects, biringing my total project involvent to at least five projects, any one of which can easily comsume all of my available time.  What can I do about it?  At the moment, I feel like I can fail.  Time to push back, and manage everyone's expectations so they expect very little of me.  I am actually having a hard time breathing right now, I think I'd better take a walk and get some air.

In other news, my training for a half marathon next month was going great, and last weekend I had run my farthest distance ever by going 9.1 miles.  This weekend (yesterday) I was suppoed to run 10 miles, but last Friday my hip started hurting (the same hip I dislocated 5 years ago), and I've decived to stop running altogether this week to give things a chance to settle down.  Hopefully it's a temporary setback and I can get back to running next weekend or next week with no trouble.  I won't be running too many marathon-type events in my life, I'd like to be able to do this half and then maybe settle back into some shorter runs (maybe as far as 6 miles) here and there just for fitness.

Laura takes the kids to her parent's place three days a week, which means a lot of time in the car for all of them, back and forth.  Lately we've really been wishing we lived closer to her parents so that all this time in the car would not be necessary.  Not sure we can afford to sell our current house right now, but I think we'll start educating ourselves on our options.  It's tough to love my kids as much as I do and know that I can't see them but for a few hours any day.

Ok, time for that little fresh air walk.

berries too big

I'm tired of oversized strawberries.  All that seems to be available in stores (at least in the one store I go to) are excessively large strawberries with no flavor.  There are some things in life that should be big, but strawberries are not among them.  What's with our obsession for large stuff?  In how many ways can this opinion be taken out of context?

All I'm saying is I don't want to pay $6 for a tiny plastic box of organic (and ymuuy and right-sized) strawberries, so instead I pay $3 or $4 for the same size tiny plastic box of oversized (mostly water) strawberries, and I am typically let down.  Blah, this last one had negative flavor.  It actually sucked flavour out of my mouth.

new year, new yogurt

Of all the things I could possibly talk about, today I come to you with yogurt.  Apparently this "protien" stuff is an important part of a "complete" meal, and even more so if one expects to be able to run a half marathon (which I am, the Shamrock'n, some time in March).  So, as of yesterday, I have started (trying) to consume "Greek" yogurt.  My first attempt was honey flavor and was rather blah since the flavor was more plain, yucky un-flavored yogurt (all those cultures don't have very much flavor culture by themselves) and less delicious, pooh bear favored honey.  Luckily today's contestant (blueberry) is posting some great results so far, and I expect to continue this grand experiment.

By experiment I mean, of course, that I expect the consumption of Greek yogurt alone to make me fit, trim, and fast.  (Note that I have consumed yogurt off and on for years, but this is my first foray into the world of "Greek" products.  Note also that I like to put "Greek" in "quotes" because it is presently striking me as "funny", and because as far as I can tell, "Greek" is a style, and no Greek people were harmed in the making of this yogurt.  Note also lastly that I am reading a book by Ellen Degeneres right now, and I find it amusing the way she draws topics out much farther than they need to be drawn.)

So on that whole topic of running, I had long wanted to run a marathon, but in 2007 when I dislocated my hip, my running future looked very bleak.  Fast forward 5 years, and really, honestly, I should not be doing a whole lot of running, but I (more or less) enjoy it, it's easy to put on shoes and just go, and one of my co-workers has peer-pressured me into doing a half after he completed his first full marathon.  So I look at it this way, I may still never run a full marathon, but this, at least, is an attempt at redeeming what I long wanted to do (the full marathon) way back when.

The problem now, of course, is that the best time to do this was back in 2000 (was in great shape from having rowed a little in college) or 2004 (was in great shape from rowing in Boston) or 2009 (was in great shape from rowing at River City in West Sac), but of course I had "other things" going on which prevented me from training for a run.  Over the last 2-3 years I've become a father twice, worked more hours, exercised less, and like many people with best interests in mind, have actually gotten less muscular-strong.

So bring on the yogurt.  And the jogging.  And the sit ups.  We'll see what we (and by we I mean me) can accomplish this year.