This moment in time is lovely

Last night I was thinking, again, about how sweet life is right here right now. These little girls are so fun to have around, they are such goofy little characters each in her own way. The Bunny is reading up a storm now, she's into Garfield and hula hoop and double dutch. She still believes in Santa Claus although I think she's beginning to suspect it's not quite the guy in red that she's been imagining. She still isn't consistently interested in keeping her hair brushed or her body washed but I'm sure that the days of having to force her out of the shower are right around the corner.
The little Raccoon has gotten along for a long time on very few words though she clearly understands everything but now the words are beginning to pour out, seemingly unnoticed by her. She is such a cute little elf of a kid, always smiling, always ready to dance.
Anyway, thinking back to what was happening in our life 10 years ago it's quite a contrast. Dh and I were still hanging out with D in Bluff at the end of our long camping trip in Toady. We had Thurber and the VW but we hadn't yet moved to Mexico and the idea of having kids or how many or who they'd be hadn't really made it to the forefront of our minds. And imagining a life on one of the northwesternmost islands in the lower 48 would have seemed a totally random stretch. But here we are. And it's lovely.

So what will the next 10 years bring?

Halloween Eve Morning

She certainly looks serious! Hopefully she's having more fun being Elphaba than she did becoming Elphaba!

Off to Shiz she goes.

Checking in

Well, I guess it's been long enough since I've checked in, huh? It's been busy, I might have mentioned that!
Right now I've got a moment to spare because the girls are both crashed out for a nap. Not so unusual but poor Bunny, this is the second Saturday in a row that she had scheduled and canceled her 8th birthday party. Last week she and I and then Nick came down with a stomach bug on Friday which had us out of commission. Then yesterday she came out of school looking wan and pale and tired and proceeded to develop a fever that we couldn't ignore. Right now the big media buzz is all about the Swine Flu, H1N1 and it looks like that's what she's got. Her fever peaked earlier today at 104.4 and I had to put her in a tepid tub to take it down. Happily that worked beautifully and it went all the way down to the 100s. It felt like it was creeping up again while she napped so I'll be keeping an eye on it. So far nobody else feels bad, Nick is in St. Louis, and I've got my fingers crossed that little Raccoon stays healthy. It's kind of spooky being the only adult.

What else is going on? Well, I've been doing really well with my new workout schedule and I'm seeing results. I stopped the diet after about 2 weeks because I wasn't feeling good at all on it this time around. I'm not sure what was going wrong but I just had zero energy. But the weight training really feels like it's kicking in and I'm feeling good. I'm also taking part in a trial of a program which combines aromatherapy and hypnosis. I think it's a fascinating idea and, like the woman who has created it, I can't believe nobody put it together before. Anyway I'm starting out with the weight release program but I also have the fitness one (if anyone's interested). I feel like a bit of a poser, I'm not nearly as overweight or underfit as the rest of the women in the trial but I figure that it can't hurt to bolster my own willpower anyway.

Nick and I got the woodstove ordered and installed. So far we've only had a couple fires which burned off the nasty smelling coating on the thing and we need to get a real stash of firewood in. As usual it causes dh real pain to think of paying for something that could conceivably be gotten for free so I haven't ordered up any cords of wood. At least for now, while it's still pretty warm and the little room heaters are perfectly sufficient to cut through the chill.

Other house projects that have moved to the top of the priority list are rat-proofing the house. Last week I found a rat sitting on the counter in the kitchen. It was a horrible thing to see and gives me the willies just thinking about it. We also need to get a new post out for our mailbox which someone thoughtfully crashed into with their car about a month ago. And, though it will be sad for Xoche, I think we've got to close off the area under the deck. The chickens have taken over the space under there and I'm afraid that they'll lay eggs there. they may have started already. I will go under and look but with the rain and sick kids I just haven't had the chance to squirm in and see. But since the rat-proofing will have to happen under there too it's on the horizon. Fun fun, hm?

There is big fun on the horizon though. We've decided (and booked the flights) to go to San Miguel for January and February! I'm pretty psyched. I feel ready for a little Mexican time and I can't wait to catch up with my friends and see a brand new baby too. I keep finding myself daydreaming about eating at Torta Mundo, swimming at Taboada and weirdly, running on the track. That last I didn't expect to be sentimental about, but I guess in some ways that is where a whole new important part of my life began. In any case, I'm really looking forward to it. We'll stop in San Diego on our way down and spend Christmas with Mom, we're only there for a week which I'm sure will be just enough. It sounds like she's actually making some new friends and connections so I'm hopeful that our stay will be more pleasant than painful.

In the meantime we'll keep working on getting and staying healthy, the kids LOVE their dance classes, I love my TKD, Nick's been hitting the gym and is looking good, the pets seem more or less satisfied, the chickens are still freeloading. All is well.

It's (almost) All Good

Busy. Busy busy busy. In a good way. But still, a lot to remember.

This week I begin my joblet as a swimming instructor. That's Wednesdays and Fridays from 2:45-as soon after 4:30 as I can get dry and dressed. On Monday and Wed I also have a new and improved hour and a half of TKD from 6:00-7:30. That is pushing the limits but I honestly do want to get that black belt so I'm in. The Bunny has soccer practice on Wednesdays too, so yes, that day is particularly heavily booked. And she's also thinking about a dance class on Mondays. As is the Raccoon on Tuesdays. Do we sound completely Americanized yet? All I know is that I'll be getting a lot of use out of that crockpot this fall. That and casseroles, most of which will look a lot like crustless quiches I suspect.

Dh and I started doing Atkins on September 1. He's going for a big loss, I'm going for about 18-20 lbs. Not really that much, I just want to skim off the pudge. If I'm done having babies I might as well get to a weight that makes me feel good sooner rather than later. I know I can do it too but I've already fallen off the Atkins wagon.

Whatever the reason, this time around it's making me feel like total crap. I'm guessing it's related to the cardio workouts I'm trying to continue. Or maybe it's hormones or maybe it's lack of discipline or maybe something more sinister Big Alison suspects being related to Wendy's failure to thrive. I don't know. But if I haven't already given up on it this minute, I'm pretty close. 12 days of fatigue and wooziness and not a single pound shed and I'm already bored to death of meat and salad and cheese. So, anyway, this isn't meant to be a diet blog, I'm not nearly a good enough writer to make that interesting even to myself, let alone my imaginary friends reading along. But I'll update if I think of it or if anything notable comes of it.

In the meantime it's back to good old Body-for-Life for me! Heigh ho, heigh ho... Now that I'm an employee of the fitness club and get to use the facility I'm going to make the most of the next 12 weeks (and beyond I hope but I work best with a deadline, don't we all?). So, children's health willing I'll hop in the pool for a little refresher course on how to swim tomorrow and then Tuesday I kick off my weight training. I'm really pumped to get back to a quiet set of dumbells and something I can count through on my headphones. I'm sure I'll be appallingly weak, last Wednesday at TKD I could hardly complete a single push-up (I blame Atkins) but that leaves lots of room to improve right?

So, that's the fitness end. Socially I'm feeling flush with new friendly acquaintances and even feel fairly secure about some new real friends, you know the kind, the kind that really last. It's pretty exciting. Facebook updates and the Dingos have kept me feeling pretty well connected for the past year of settling in but suddenly I've got my own social calendar too! Actual nights out and get togethers with other women my own age! It's very different here too. In Mexico we pretty much did all our socializing as a couple except for the odd cup of coffee or lap around the track. But generally speaking if I had a thing to go to Dh was expected too and vice versa. Not so here! Now and then we'll go out together to dinner with friends or have a couple over here, but more often than not it's all women or all men. And in this I've got the busier schedule than dh. Whatever the cause I've fallen in with a couple different circles of moms that keep regular meetings and so in the last few weeks I've had the pleasure of dinner and movie one night, drinks and movie another and a goofy sweet game night last night during which one member came out to the rest (even me who she'd never met before but I guess supposed I'd been cleared) as well as the odd run now and then with my RP and others with a group of women who go twice a week. So that is good.

The only thing I worry about is Dh's social calendar. Since we aren't included much in one another's social engagements it's hard to gauge how he's doing. I'd love him to have the same sense of being drawn in to the community but I worry that it's not happening. But maybe these things all go in cycles. I remember evenings in SMA spent watching chick flicks with the Bunny while dh was out playing poker with guys, an activity I never had a equivalent to there. And I guess he's a big boy and can decide how much or how little he wants to involve himself in, but still, I do worry.

And the kids, they're just fine. The Bunny has had a happy start to the school year, loves her new teacher, likes soccer, has lots of events on her soical calendar too. We went to Seattle to see Wicked last weekend (that was a thrill for me to watch her watching it) and this weekend she had her first ever soccer game at which she played hard and gamely. Then she had a sleep over and another is on the schedule for next weekend.... and on it goes. Right now she is awake however and coughing on the couch. I guess her school has already seen quite a dip in attendance and apparently her class was down by 4 by the end of last week. So it may be something to be concerned about, or it may be Sunday Night Flu. Time will tell. At least there is little on tomorrow's schedule that can't be ignored, it's one of the last days like that for a while so I hope this cough turns out to be nothing much.

And now I hear the other one protesting over the monitor. After missing her nap today she was out by 7:30 tonight but that's awfully early so I expect that this night will feel pretty long by the ed of it. And on that note.

The End

Another Beautiful Day

So starts another beautiful day here in this new life which is so completely comfortable. I was walked out to the chicken yard by the two cats who were playing together all the way and the two geese who were trying to get a little of the chicken bucket action. The chickens flooded gratefully out of their coop and did some low stunt flying around their yard, I guess they are still only adolescent birds after all! The sun is just appearing over the trees, there's a soft breeze, the goldfinches are making a ruckus in the thistle and the girls are still sound asleep. Bliss, in other words.

We were off-island this weekend to see our old SMA buddies L and A and their sweet little boys. It couldn't have been a more American style backyard barbeque and although everyone seemed at ease it was still a little weird to see these guys out of Mexico. It was like their auras were flashing morse code about needing to get back to Mexico or something. Not that I can see auras but you know, you could just tell.
We also did some poking around at kitchen stores to get some ideas for countertops and layouts. We did come out of it inspired and with a fresh bead of energy to get to work on the place. We also bought some fancy dishwasher drawers to use but canceled the order when we got home and read some reviews about repair rates and quality. It was a sexy moment though, the thought of those fancy-pants appliances. In any event, we've got an almost complete floor plan for the space now that feels really good and functional so it was all worth it.

The girls are doing great. The Bunny is so excited about getting back to school. We bought her the typical batch of pencils, erasers, folders emblazoned with Miley Cyrus etc. and she spent a couple hours arranging and rearranging her pencil box and backpack. She has been assigned to the teacher she most wanted and drew this adorable picture for her, telling her how she'd been praying to be in her class. The spelling is heart-stoppingly atrocious but it's cute and I figure it gives the teacher a good heads up on where to start.
I had some parental pangs of knee-jerk "Hey! What's my brilliant kid doing in that class??" when I saw that hers is the split 1st/2nd classroom. Seeing as she's already done first grade twice but last year's teacher assured us she was head and shoulders above most of the class in reading and writing and basically everything but math it struck me as worrisome that she'd be back in a classroom, again, with kids that may not know how to write all their letters yet. And since she's one of (if not the) oldest kids in her year it also seems like an odd decision to put her in a room with kids who may be as much as 2 full years younger. So I will contact the teacher and ask these questions, but the Bunny is so over the moon happy about this teacher I'm not inclined to make a real stink unless the teacher says "Oh I have the class for cut-ups and dopes and she'll fit right in/she's there to be an example."

The Raccoon meanwhile is in preschool a couple mornings a week and LOVING it. Her best mornings are those when I ask her if she wants to go see Miss Summer. And this weekend she started using her potty! I honestly can hardly believe it though I hope my incredulity isn't showing. She just seems so young to be there. But she went to school in undies yesterday and did very well apparently until after lunch (not too surprising). We just bought another mega pack of dipes of course but I'll happily donate them to the Family Resource Center if she sticks with it. And her birthday is coming up. She does love her buddies at school so this year I don't think I can shrug off a real party. The Bunny has been buzzing around with her clipboard for weeks asking me if we should go with chocolate or vanilla, kitten theme or puppies, in the house or outside, with the water slide or no. I am a little hesitant to invite other toddlers over to our so-not-childproof home but it does feel like a bit of a failure to do this at a local park. So, TBD.

Post Marathon Void

Did I really finish a marathon? Can I even claim to have run it seeing as I had to walk so many stretches of it? That was it? If I could do it, anyone could, nothing special. I guess it's a familiar sense of let-down to anyone who has been preparing and waiting for something exciting to happen after the event is over and unfocused life resumes.
It reminds me of childbirth, you focus for 9 months on this moment that you suspect may be to most difficult ordeal of your life, physically, emotionally. Then it happens and in the moment you're there, living it, getting through it. Maybe it doesn't go as you had hoped but there is little hope of fixing it in the moment, you just have to adjust to endure it. And then suddenly it's over and you're on the other side. You're a new person or at least you're told that you are. But life keeps on rolling. Maybe you get a day off, the rest of the day anyway, maybe the day after. But then, before you've had time to reflect on what just happened, there are things to do, new responsibilities to accept and you're off. And all that preparation seems like it was a lifetime ago, did you really even do it?

So now what? Well, I've got a list of course. During all those many hours of plodding around the roads I had many ideas come and go about what next. Let's see

• Get certified as a lifeguard and help out at the pool
• Focus on Taekwondo
• Meal planning
• Take the Bunny to see Wicked for a girls' weekend in Seattle
• Watch every soccer game
• Pick as many blackberries as humanly possible
• Learn how to can food
• Pick all the peaches and plums before the critters do
• Help the Raccoon get out of dipes
• Spend more time on the boat
• Go camping with the kids
• Do more bike riding with the Bunny
• Ride my own bike w/the trailer more
  
• Focus on strength and toning losing about 20 pounds in the process
  
• Volunteer at school
• Take the EMT training course
• Finish the freakin' house!

That last one needs it's own special list. My Dad has been here for a little over two weeks and in tat time he has been busy improving our comfort levels significantly. He's built nesting boxes for the chickens, a treehouse and a seesaw for Chiara, he's built me a cabinet for my fancy wall ovens and helped us finish the last bit of the deck which had been untouched since last summer. He hung towel racks that had been in boxes since last fall and installed netting over the chickens to dissuade the eagles. All of these projects had been languishing hopelessly and now they're done! Now, can Dh and I keep the momentum going? We don't have much a of a track record. Before we had the kids we could grind out some real projects and did, but that was a long time ago now and our rhythm is way off.
But here's a list, just to help me focus;

• Design and build posts/bookshelves for the living room
• Sand and refinish the basketball court floor
• Install the floor
• Finalize the layout for the kitchen
• Build the counterspace needed
• Install the cooktop
• Find a better kitchen sink and reinstall with sound plumbing
• Rip out drywall ceiling in kitchen, rewire as needed and install tongue and groove/beadboard
• Choose, order and install trim on indoor doors and windows
• Choose order and install trim for exterior doors and windows
• Paint exterior
• Rebuild missing gable on front of house?
• Build raised garden beds, in back for herbs and lettuce, in front for everything else.
• Build garage/barn
• Finish getting mega trash pile to dump
• Get rid of the Pinto
• Find appropriate hardwood for stairs and install
• Install railing on stairs
• Recarpet upstairs
• Rip out crap tub and toilet from girls' bathroom and install decent shower.
• Build a dock for the pond
• Make decent paths to the front and back doors
• Build walls for pantry and broom closet
• Reconfigure laundry area to make space for folding clothes
• Find and install woodstove before we need it
• Figure out a convenient place to store the wood for it
• Build the half post/bookshelves for both entrances
• Get the Raccoon's bedroom ready for her to use
• Paint fun kid stuff on the walls of the playroom
• Make the downstairs guestroom into something functional
• Install pedestal sink in ds bath
• Finish pocket door
• Install doors on interior doorways
  

I'm sure there is more.

Marathon Story

Thank you all for all that awesome support y'all were sending out on Sunday!!! I felt every drop of that was coming our way and it made all the difference. Seriously, that run was hard. HARD. Really super unexpectedly beyond my wildest dreams hard. I mean, after my 21.3 miler training run that was so easy I seriously felt totally confident and like the marathon would be exhausting but basically totally doable and pure fun. But, in the real live moment my IT bands started locking down on me, first one side then the other at mile 6. Six! 20 miles to go. Twenty. Twenty miles.

I was thinking, "Really? Now? Here? On the Golden Gate Bridge? The part of the run that I was most looking forward to and my knees are locking up here and being all distracting and sinister?? Honestly?"

And my knees were like, "Yeah sure, why not party girl?"

And I thought, "But, this is my marathon! My marathon with my dingos and I've been training forever for this day, today and I want it to feel easy like I planned for and trained for!"

And my knees were like, "Yeah well whatever, this is how it is, suck it sister."

So I sucked it. First I had to stop even pretending that I cold run downhill at all, let alone like Jo who ran down hills like she was a stream on her way to her ocean debut. Then I had to admit that walking a minute at each mile marker wasn't going to be enough walking and that the sooner I started walking enough to feel like running the better my chances were of finishing in time. And so I walked a lot and limped a lot and stopped and stretched a lot. And it was cool. I walked backwards down the hills. I stopped at the bacon station. I ate a gu that had been dropped on the ground. I nearly cried when I found out the medics had biofreeze I could use. I talked to people who needed encouragement and thanked people for encouraging me. I smiled the whole way. I finished and I even pulled off a real live sprint to the finish wherein I passed a bunch of people and felt really good and like I won and I just barely kept myself from bursting into happy wiped out exhausted tears as I bent forward while a volunteer placed that medal around my neck.

And you know what? Right alongside the feelings of pain and denial and fear that it wasn't happening the way I wanted it to I was exactly to the same degree totally thrilled, exhilarated and overjoyed that I was there, running my marathon with all these other incredibly dedicated people, many of whom were sucking it as hard or harder than I was, all together winding through my hands down favorite city in the world for twenty six point two miles. It was awesome, fantastic, overwhelming and humbling and sweet. I giggled a lot at the absurd and fabulousness of being both sides of the coin at once and being fully aware of that. It was the cleanest experience of the yin yang I've ever had. Like, now I get that, I get the whole yin yang thing. I kind of got it before but during the race it was like I was running in a hamster wheel of yin yang and the black and the white just blurred together so there was no separation, it was just all complete.

And, despite the stupid pain I was experiencing there was one thing that rocked out completely. I am a hill climbing machine! Oh yes. I did not feel one iota of extra exertion on any of the up hills, I felt like everyone else in the race had been slowed down to half speed and I was the only one who still got to go at a normal speed, or even faster. Even when my legs were so sore it was like the pain was magically erased for going uphill. That was sweet, I just wish the whole race had been uphill!

Okay, the wide world of housework can wait no longer. And I haven't even gone on and on about how much I loved hanging with the dingos. It was the best time I've had since I can't remember. So many moments fighting to keep food from flying through my nose, such sore abs. Such good times.