Fleeting Thoughts and Countdowns

*  Summer needs to end.  I never could understand why my mom would get so antsy towards the end of summer, but now that I have tasted the blessing of having a fidgety, bored six year old out of the house every day I cannot WAIT for school to start. 

*  That countdown: 20 days!

*  Saturday, my running buddy, N. and I "practiced" our half-marathon by running 11 miles in the dark.  It was eerie and creepy and...dark, but it was a good training run.  We ran it with our watches only displaying the distance, not the time or pace as usual.  This was to see if we could mentally run without a watch, and I have to say it was liberating.  In fact, when we ended and looked up our time, (the watch still calculates time, average pace, and mile splits regardless of whether it's displayed or not) we had averaged 20 seconds per mile slower than our goal race pace.  Which is AWESOME, since we didn't turn on our music at all and talked through the entire thing. 

*  That countdown: 10 days

*  Wade is headed out on a scout trip here soon and I made a comment in a church meeting that got someone's underwear in a bunch.  Seriously.  I can't believe that we have to deal with this kind of crap at church.  It frustrates me to no end. 

*  At the beginning of the racing season, I vowed I was going to concentrate on only one event--my yearly triathlon we do here in conjuction with our town's Days celebration.  Then, somehow, I ended up training for a half marathon and a duathlon and the triathlon went to the sidelines.  I'm a little sad because I think I could have done awesome if I would have put in the training time I had originally envisioned, but I'm happy I get to go hang out with cool friends at fun races.  Makes me nervous for this triathlon though.

*  That countdown: 18 days

*  I'm starting to get nervous about the duathlon because of how late of a start it is (8 am) and the heat. And the six mile run after biking 30 miles.  Oh, and the 3 mile run to start it off with. I'm also excited because it's my last race and then I'm taking time off.  And I'm serious.  Even when a friend mentioned doing a half marathon in October, there was not a stir in my heart to join her.

* That countdown: 38 days

* I've been consulting with my original running buddy who is due with baby #5 in a month.  She's antsy to get back out there and start training again,  but luckily, for me, she needs about 9 months to recooperate, with the up all nights and nursing.  That should be about the time I'm ready to come back.  And we're going to come back with  a vengence.  We have goals people!

*  I realize that that last statement sounds like I'm making an announcement.  I'm not.  Just to clarify.

*  My niece had to have surgery on her hip in June and the cast has been an incredible nuisance, mainly because it covers...everything...and so changing diapers and the such has been beyond a headache.  I had been planning on taking the kids up to Downey, Idaho to my grandma's house for the rodeo and my brother and his wife (and little girl) were going to come up too.  Then it was all up in the air because of this cast that renders them all but homebound.  BUT, yesterday, she had it taken off, so we're all going to the rodeo this weekend.  I'm really excited because I remember going when I was little and it being a blast.  And because it's something to do that I don't even have to run insane amounts of miles to enjoy. 

*  That countdown: 2 days

*  I'm starting a new novel.  Like today.  Writing one, not reading one. I'm pretty stoked about it.  I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile and I just need to put it down.

*  Sometimes I wonder if anyone reads this anymore.  But you know what?  I don't care.  Because sometimes I like to go back and reread entries and marvel at how far I've come/how far I've fallen. :)  Read.  Or don't read.  I'm still going to write.  You know, when I feel like it.

Farewell to Thee

It's hard to describe Ross to someone who had never met him.  I met him my first Toastmaster's meeting.  He  was the grammarian and had an uncanny ability to pick out every grammatical mistake uttered.  He was such a strange little man.  Eccentric and odd.  A bit loud.  Not too quick on picking up on social cues. 

He had the best stories about being a cab driver in Las Vegas, though I only believed about a third of them.  He claimed to have met a host of celebrities and even knew Frank Sinatra.

Uh-huh.

He had moved to Salt Lake about 15 years ago and was a cab driver here.

About a year after I joined Toastmasters, Ross--who was becoming hard of hearing--misunderstood what someone was saying in their speech and took it to be offensive.  That person refused to apologize and a fight broke out between them and a third guy (they are all roughly the same age--mid 60's), and Ross left the club.

I missed him at first because he did add just a bit of flair to the meetings, but over time, his presence was less felt and before long, he was a distant memory. 

Two weeks ago, I had a fleeting thought about Ross.  I was wondering what he was up to and that was about it.  Then we found out that he had passed away from Leukemia--the very day I was thinking about  him.

So creepy.  I mean, this was someone that I was hardly close with.  But, I felt like I shou\
ld go to his funeral.

Sidenote: I hate funerals.  I do terrible at them.  All of them.  It doesn't matter who's there or not.  I'm terrible.

But, I went.

For starters, I had no idea about his hard childhood filled with sicknesses.  Or that he served in Korea.  I did know that he spoke a few languages, but I had NO idea he was fluent in 10 (yes, TEN) languages, meaning he could write, speak, and read them.  He could also only speak another 15.  In fact, he was in the process of learning Icelandic when he passed away.  Icelandic is the hardest language in the world to learn and only has about 300,000 speakers.  He had a special knack for languages. 

Everyone who spoke at Ross's funeral told about how intelligent and funny he was.  They talked about how he wanted to get to know people and that was why he learned so many languages, so he could talk to anyone he met in their native tongue. He was especially compassionate and loved life to  the fullest.  Even though he was so incredibly smart and could have done anything, he wanted the simple life and chose to drive a cab. 

The best part of the funeral came when a lady stood up towards the end of the services.  She said that her husband was the next speaker but that he had an emergency surgery he had to perform.  She was stalling time to give him a chance to get there.  She spoke for about 10 minutes, relaying funny stories about Ross.  When she had run out of things to say, she finally conceded that her husband wasn't going to make it.

The bishop (Ross was LDS, which was news to me) stood up to close the meeting with a few remarks, when in ran a guy in doctor scrubs.  The bishop turned the time over to him and he gave some heartfelt remarks.  He said he had to keep it short because his next patient was asleep on the table waiting for him.

Eek.

In the end, it was a very nice service and I'm glad I went.  I was reminded of bigger things than what I've been concentrating on and I think I left a better person.

For a brief moment in time, I brushed up against a true genius, and I'm grateful for that association, even if it was only for a small chunk of time in Ross's life.  But I'll always be grateful for what I learned after he was gone.

Oh, and those stories about the celebrities.  All true.  His sister had the pictures to prove it.  Just goes to show you not to judge a book by it's cover.

Disorganized Organization

I am, self-proclaimed, the most disorganized person I know.  It's like a curse.  I have some incredibly organized friends (I keep telling one friend that she should become a professional organizer and get paid because she is THAT good) and sister-in-laws, but I'm like a little space monkey next to them.

This has been causing me a lot of stress lately. 

I want to be organized.  I desire to be organized.  I love to be at their homes because they are so organized.  I want to love to be at my house because I'm so organized. 

And I have a bazillion projects I want to do, but they are all dependent on another project that has to get done.  And that project is dependent on another project.  And on and on.  It's a vicious, vicious cycle and I get overwhelmed easily. 

Friday, I decided I was done with being disorganized.  I found a project (two actually) and they are both dependant on the garage being cleaned out.  So, Friday morning, I set out to do just that.  I cleaned out the garage, hosed it down, and arranged everything so that we could put two cars in instead of no cars.  This alone was a big accomplishment. 

Now I have my workspace.

(What are my two projects?  You'll have to wait and see.  It's a surprise.)

Also, I sorta got bit by the sewing bug.  I'm understandedly a bit confused about this because I have had next to zero desire, except for a fleeting moment when I had just had J., in which I had any inkling of anything that could be called desire to sew.  But now?

I figure it's God way of preparing me for the end of the world. 

And then there's the whole writing thing, which I love, but have made no effort to incorporate into my life.  I need to work on that.

I know that if I was more organized I would find oodles and oodles of time (time spent looking for library books and figuring out what to make for lunch and cleaning the house) in which I could actually do stuff I WANT to do instead of stuff I HAVE to do.

Which brings me to the introduction of the Family Bible.  I will go into the Family Bible more intricately in another (boring?) blog post but basically it's a binder with a monthly calendar, a weekly to-do list, a daily to-do list, a running shopping list, a list of meals--breakfast, lunch, and dinner--for the week, a detailed step-by-step project for the week that I'll concentrate on and what/how much exercise I'm doing each day of the week.

Watch out people!  Like my menu cards, which have completely revolutionized our dinner plans, I plan on the Family Bible doing the same for my life.

Consider this an introduction into how I take over the world!

The Universe is Plotting Against Me

This morning, I woke up to do a six mile run.  I wasn't feeling very good.  My legs were still sore from my 10 miler on Monday and my arms were sore from lifting weights yesterday.  And I'm just tired all around.  Like burned out, but I still have three more big races to go until the end of the season.

And then...

I don't know.  Something quiet like knitting or sewing or baking bread.

But until then, I'm still hammering away the miles.

So, I pick up my running buddy N. and head over to another running buddy's house C.  C. is from the original group who trained for the marathon, but since the other member of the trio got pregnant and hasn't been running since she hit about 24 weeks, C. has been running with someone else.  So I don't see her much.  But that someone else is at Girls Camp this week so, I called C. to see if she wanted to join us. 

Hence how me, S., is running with N. and C. this morning. 

Got it?  Good.

So, we start off and I know from the get go--really from the moment I woke up--that this was not going to be one of my more stellar runs.  So I let N. go ahead of me.  I can see her and I think she makes the next turn, but then we never see her again.  C. and I wind through our little township and never see N.  WHich would not be a big deal, except for that you could spend hours on some of those streets and never find your way out.  Finally, I decide that I should probably go in search of her.  But where?

I drive around and never see her, so I go home to see if maybe she's called.  But she hasn't.  So I have to wake the kids (neither kid is an early riser.  J. will sleep until 9:30.  A. will sleep usually until 8:30 or 9:00.  It's 7:30 and Wade is heading off to work) and load them in the car to go back out.  Luckily, I find N. on her way home.  She had, indeed, missed the turn, and then couldn't remember where the water we had put out was, and by then it was getting warm and she had been out for 7+ miles.  But because C. lives about 2 miles from us, she had quite a ways to go. 

So why did I go in search of my buddy?  Because I'm a good friend, that's why.  I kind of feel responsible for the people I run with.  Their husbands know they are out with me and they probably assume that we're all together.  So if N. would have gotten kidnapped or hurt and I left her to find her own way home, then I sorta feel like it would have been partly my blame.

I just feel better if I know that you've made it home.

Now, if you're running by yourself, I have no qualms about it.  That's a risk we all take when we step outside by ourselves.

But, have no fear, because no good deed goes unpunished.  As I was carting in my cranky kids, a box of cereal, and a bottle of water, I managed to drop my smartphone onto the driveway and it shattered the screen.  It's still usable, but now there's a spider web that spreads across it.

Not the worse thing going on in my life right now, but I was still really mad about it.  Especially when two minutes later, the box of cereal I had sacrificed my phone for was ceremoniously dumped onto the living room carpet.

Ha!

I've written three different blog entries for today and then deleted them all because they were all stupid.

What is going on?

When Good Ideas Go Terribly, Terribly Wrong

The local cinema out here in boondock land hosts a summer movie thingie where, for $10, you get to go a movie every week, on the same day of the week, at the same time.  They're predetermined shows and are usually children's movies a year or two old.  It's a nice way to get out of the house and at least the theater is air conditioned.

Some weeks are not bad.  Some weeks, the movies last FOREVER.  We did this when A. was a baby because it was right during her nap time.  I didn't do it last year because she had just learned to walk and I figured there was no way she would sit through all those movies.

And then this year, I thought maybe she had matured a little bit.  She'll sit through movies at home with no problem.  We've gone to other movies at times and she's been fine.  But for whatever reason, she does not like these movies.

I had the foresight to get a ticket for one of J.'s friend's so that J. isn't all alone.  Which is nice, because I spend the majority of every movie out in the foyer, or in the bathroom, or, as was the case today, in the car.  Because A. would rather be anywhere but watching a movie.

Oiy.  This girl has the attention span of a tiny insect and she is driving me nuts!  I take back all those things I said about J. like how he was the most stubborn kid I had ever met. Or how he was so independent and fierce.  Because his sister has shown him up. 

Don't even get me started on church.  How did I manage to sire two children with such an intense hatred of church?

If I survive the next year, I'll consider it a miracle.  Baby steps.  Baby steps.

Wade Goes Camping

Wade is in charge of the older scouts.  The ones between 14 and 18.  They are suppose to be the "tough" scouts and Wade likes to remind them of this on occassion.

This last weekend, it was the Boyscout On Target Day, or something like that.  The idea is to build reflecting mirrors and beam other scouts on top of peaks around the valley.  With ultrabright lights reflecting the sun's rays.

I know.  I know.

So Wade decided that he would backpack the boys into a lake three miles from the trailhead to Deseret Peak, the tallest peak in Tooele County.  And then on Saturday, they would hike the fiveish miles to the peak, beam their buddies at the other peaks, and then hike the eight miles back to the trailhead.

The weekend before, he built this ultra-cool mirror comprised of four (yes, four!) 12 x 12 mirrored tiles mounted on a 16 inch circular piece of wood.  It was quite the project and then he had to dismantle it because how does one cart a 2 foot by 2 foot mirror up a mountain? 

In pieces, that's how.

Late Friday afternoon, they took off.  In his party were three (yes, three) boys and three adults.  None of the adults were fathers to any of the boys.

The rest of the story is what he relayed to me upon coming home:

It took them a lot longer than they had anticipated to hike into the lake Friday afternoon, a road best suited for ATVs and had been washed out by a blocked river, and by the time they got there it was dark.  So they just set up their tents anywhere.

(I believe they all brought their own tents, which makes zero sense, but I let him continue with his tale).

 He helped one of the adult leaders with his tent, which had the wrong poles.  But luckily, this guy had packed a hammer.  Which was of no use except for very heavy.

They ate dinner.  Then they talked.  And then when it was time to go to bed, and that was when Wade discovered that he was sleeping on a pile of rocks.  Very pokey, sharp rocks. Things were fairly uneventful until roughly about 2 am, when the wind picked up.  The wind ALWAYS picks up when Wade is out on a backpacking trip with the scouts.  When Wade looked out his window, he noticed that his buddy with the hammer had two broken poles and his head was completely exposed on the outside of the tent. 

Wade tried to fall back asleep.

At 4 am, a shift in wind direction brought an especially bad gust of wind and Wade looked outside again.  This time The Hammer's tent had fallen down and he was in the process of packing it up.  Wade invited him into his tent to which The Hammer replied:

"I'll think about it."

Sometime between 4:30 and 5:30, The Hammer declared to Wade that he was headed home.  And with that, he was gone, his tent nestled somewhere in the bushes, given up to the gods.

The beaming was suppose to take place between 11 am and 1 pm, so the rest of the group had to get up early and start heading up the peak.

It seems that the peak is still covered in snow though.  But not to be deterred, Wade kept his troop moving along, traversing snow packs.  At one point, they came to a place that they couldn't navigate.  Wade agreed to go ahead and spot where they could make it through.  When he came back to his group a mutiny had formed. The remaining five people usurped Wade's authority and declared that they were not going to hike to the top of Deseret Peak.

Wade got them to agree to hike a smaller peak nearby, so they all trekked back and then up to the next peak.  At the pass just below the peak, one of the boys and the other adult leader refused to go any higher.  Wade, who had lugged up a monster of a mirror to beam other troops was not going to give up so easily, so he got the other two boys to accompany him, more so that he would have two extra people to carry the mirrored tiles than for company sake.

He was able to beam some of the other peaks--much to my astonishment.  They had a grand time.  Then they came back, picked up their backpacks at their campsites and came home.

He noted that the boys were a little tired and even showed some concern as to the boy who would be putting on a fire dancing show in a mere 30 minutes.  When Wade dropped off the lone remaining adult leader, he had to carry in the guy's backpack and expressed a desire to maybe drive him to the emergency room.  He wasn't really answering questions and looked a little pale.  His wife didn't seem too concerned so Wade left and came home.

As it turns out, maybe Wade needs to come with some warning label that says WARNING: I am bionic man who needs no breaks, no rest, no food, and am compelled to finish anything remotely crazy.  Proceed with caution.

I will be forever grateful to the scout program for making it so I don't have to accompany him on as many insane trips.