Fourth Month - December

The language of a society changes slowly but steadily with the result that an educated person will not be able to read or understand words in his language written 500 years ago.

Today’s Exploit:

Thanksmas was crazy. We did ugly sweaters this year, instead of mustaches and google eyes for the family picture. Honey was promoted back to driller, finally, and naturally they changed his schedule so that he missed all the fun/crazy.  

Baby Arlo decided that I am the favorite and took naps and snuggled with me only. Evidently she liked being kicked by her cousin while sleeping. 

We tried to get some good pictures of Baby at the body-scan sonogram, but it’s stubborn like Daddy and would only show arms and legs. I had to schedule another session because they needed brain pictures. 

Also, YaYa decided that she did actually want to know if Baby is a boy or girl. But I said no one gets to know since I don't want to, wahahahahah!

Family crazy is tiring, makes you need pre-bed naps. 

Group Laziness

H. and Chuk were there for the fire, Stella was there for the pets.

A New Year

This week’s recommended reading:

Image from here.

Today’s Exploit:

I have suddenly come into a profusion of books. I was showered with them for Thanksmas and Christmas. My family finally listened to me… They never get me books anymore, so it was quite exciting. I am working on number 4 right now. Yay.

This one comes with high recommendations. H has read one book since we met, and it’s this one. Not only that, he’s read it twice.

So I am delighted to enter a new year with so many new books to read, to distract me from my continued joblessness (and the fact that I haven’t heard anything about a recent interview), and that H. is back at work on a schedule that I don’t particularly like.

Happy Belated New Year. (You can hear the noisemakers, right? And the 73025 fireworks that had Stella and Chuk driving me nuts with their shivers and need to be ON my lap.) 

Frio Weekend

Q: What did one wall say to the other wall? 

A: I'll meet you at the corner. 

Today’s Exploit:

We went to the Frio River last weekend. It was lovely and chaotic.

We stayed in a house with 12.2 people. 7 Adults (They claim), 1 Almost Adult, 5 Kids and 1 newborn (hence the .2). Plus two crazy dogs that thought 5 kids was AMAZING.

The weekend was a waterlogged adventure of too much alcohol, too much food and manic kids on a Tarzan swing. 

Friday night was beer pong and lots of drunken hugs and “I love you”s. Letting kids stay up too late and eating too many cookies.

Saturday was enough food to feed 87, an afternoon at the Frio itself and a bazillion tubers. 

Saturday evening was spent at the creek by the house with kids on the Tarzan swing. I went to the pool with them to make sure no one drowned. H. went with me and a couple others came for a while. I managed to be in the water when one of the kiddies let go at the wrong time and got a knee stuck between a rock and a pretty big root, shrieking his head off making people think he severed his leg rather than being stuck. Later on, when all the adults deserted me, another kiddie decided not to let go at all and smacked into the tree with the back of his head.

But overall it was a good weekend and everyone had fun and no one got seriously hurt.

Supposedly we’re supposed to go on a cruise next year…

Whoa

The "I-can't-believe-they're-actually-doing-it" Look

It's Almost Thanksmas!

Happy Thanksgiving. I will be jealous of everyone who gets to see their families. Thanksgiving is all about extended family and a big reunion.

Today’s Exploit:

Thanksmas is my version of Thanksgiving and Christmas, since my job doesn’t allow me to take holidays off.

My parents and my sister and her significant other will be coming to my house.

Cupcake is the only one who has seen it in person, and she was just there late at night and early in the morning.

And that was before we had any furniture. 

Plus she was more interested in her wedding dress.

Duh.

But now they are going to be crashing my house for a week, and I haven’t even had a chance to put the curtains up.

They may have to do chores before we can do an official house tour.

A Water-Fight

This week’s recommended reading:

All Terry Pratchett books are amazing,
but I particularly like the ones about the witches. Book art found here.

Today’s Exploit:

After my big race we left pretty fast, before everyone was back and before awards. So I didn’t get the only award I’ll probably ever get from a race. But I had a water-fight with Eli and Cavan and that was better.

They have some foam water shooter things and a tub to fill them at. So I guarded the tub and they ganged up on me. 

We all raced around the lawn, which is amazing and even I can run around barefoot, and laughed like crazy and screamed when we were shot.  

They also really helped me fight off the post-run stiffness. And forget that my legs were jelly from  running up and down a mountain. (Which I haven’t had the chance to do since the last half-marathon race running up and down the same mountain.) 

We all ended up soaked, which was fine, because they were going boating and I had to take a shower. I had some serious dirt-tan from the dusty trail mixed with sunscreen.

Happy Clouds

Happy Christmas

May your holidays be as goofy and strange as our Thanksmas.

Thanksmas in Texas

I made marshmallows!

Today’s Exploit:

My parents came to Texas for Thanksmas this year. I told them it was going to be really nice and to bring some shorts. And then the weather changed and we spent the week with windy mid 30* weather. However, they were not too disappointed because they left -30* weather when they came here.

We went Thanksmas shopping and failed to complete any of my well organized plans for entertainment. We had Christmas Sausage and Bran Muffins and my dad ran the Jingle Bell 5k with me. I think it was actually called Sights and Sounds, but everyone was wearing jingle bells. 

And then we opened gifts and everyone was happy and Cupcake and Arley procrastinated going back to Albuquerque because they were afraid of ice storms. 

A Ski Trip for Texans

On my way home I stopped at the office to talk to Joanne, the HR person. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t too traumatized by my experiences in Canada. She asked me a few times if I was ok and then we talked about other things for a few hours. 

Her daughter wants to be an engineer and a baker, too. I like her already and we’ve never met. I hope she grows up to be everything she dreams of.

Today’s Exploit:

I went home for a visit. I took H. and Klay with me. I wanted to make them ski. I knew it would be great entertainment. I imagined graphic scenes of a snowball with skis and poles rolling down the hill and yelling. And naturally I’d be skiing gracefully behind it laughing and helping it up at the bottom. As for Klay, I figured he’d pick it up in no time at all.

And it was great entertainment while my dad was teaching Klay. I saw a few good crashes, and the skis came off a few times while flailing and trying to fall sideways. But then Dad had to go back to work and the teaching was left entirely to me. 

That was scary. 

I’m not that great a skier, how am I supposed to teach a four year old?

So we did a few more runs before he decided it was too hard and started telling me he was scared. Then I got irritated and hungry and decided we should stop before I left him in the middle of a windy hill. 

So we had lunch and I switched to a snowboard, which is not the best of ideas in my opinion, I’m just getting somewhat comfortable at the skiing thing. 

I went with H. up the kiddy hill and I made us wreck when getting off the lift. Off to a good start. 

But then H. took a wrong turn and I had to climb back up the hill to follow him, since he was going too fast and ignored me when I asked if he really wanted to go that way.  That way took a long time because the road sloped sideways, and it’s hard to get up and get some momentum when you have to go into the trees to do it. At any rate, I got a good ab workout leapfrogging up to the top side of the road and slipping slowly to the bottom side, just to repeat it all again.

When we got to the bottom, after a very strenuous time for both of us, is when I got to break the news about taking another ride on the chairlift. See, the way we went took us to the back side and we were stuck FAR away from the lodge, and the only way back is to take another run. 

On that one I finally was able to turn a little, which is amazing considering that the other two times I tried to snowboard I was way to scared of catching my back edge and landing on my head. 

I still landed on my bum once or twice or 37.682 times, but didn’t make it so far as my head. 

Needless to say we were done with snowboarding after that, but I did hear a whisper saying that we can go skiing again next time.  

Yay!

My New Year's Adventure

I am doing the Insanity workout. I am starting week 3 today. I don’t remember my feet cramping so much last time I did this. 

Ouch.

Today’s Exploit:

Some time last month I was told: “AAAHHHHHHH! WE ARE SHORT ON PEOPLE IN CANADA AND HAVE TO MANY PEOPLE HERE AND THEREFORE YOU MUST LEAVE IN TWO DAYS!”

And my reply was: “Um, two days? I don’t really have anything together.”

Then they said, “BUT WE NEED YOU THERE THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY AND NO ONE ELSE HAD THEIR PAPERWORK OR PASSPORT CRAP TOGETHER AND THEREFORE YOU ARE THE ONE THAT MUST LEAVE YESTERDAY!”

So I said: “Ok, I need to go home and pack, and maybe buy something warm to wear since Texas never sees temperatures below 98 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Then some plans changed and they told me: “OK YOU CAN HAVE 5 DAYS AT HOME BUT YOU MUST DO ALL THE TRAVEL ORGANIZATION AND CLASS REQUIREMENT SCHEDULING YOURSELF ON THIS REALLY CONFUSING WEBSITE!”

And I managed to get everything organized, through the company website, along with some plans for expense reports and got a call from the manager telling me to be at the shop the same time I was supposed to be taking Emergency First Aid. 

Yay for confusion.

Anyway, some Canadian pictures for your viewing pleasure.

My home for 2.1 days. I walked in and out the door 37 times the night I got there, I'm pretty sure the desk attendant hated me.

I thought my sister would like this. A nice little market place 3 or 4.3 blocks from my home. It's kinda like a mall with an imports grocery in the middle.

And then I found a river island and fell in love, because it has a running path, a skating rink and a coffee shop that was closed for New Year's holiday.

See how much I loved it? I even learned to use the settings on my camera for it.

And I loved it some more with picnic tables and a strange cowboy hat-swing in the background.

That was the bridge where I discovered the skating rink. It was on the river, on both sides of the bridge with chairs and cones for new skaters and people doing jumps and some kids playing illegal hockey and all sorts of fun stuff. I was sad I didn't have my skates with me.

Calgary has some really awesome street lamps also, I was in love with them too.

A Late Thanksmas

Thanksgiving pies for some roughnecks, or other oilfield workers, by PJ and Cupcake.

Apple Pie by PJ

Pumpkin Pie by Cupcake

Today’s Exploit:

I made it home for the week before Christmas, it was our latest Thanksmas so far. Only a week before the 25th. 

I went tree hunting with the whole family, to lunch with my mom, and went to work with my dad, and skied and rode in a groomer and had all sorts of adventures. 

And then we had Christmas breakfast for dinner

And my mom made the table look very pretty so that the mass destruction was even more obvious and traumatic

and destroyed my mom’s cleaning efforts with ribbons and tissue paper and crepe paper. 

Everyone is guilty of gift paper-chaos

Cupcake mad out like a stripy-cupcakey bandit

And she loved her babushka hat and russian doll measuring set

And we all got ‘stashes and had an official family photo night. Arley was forced to take part, but Eda managed to escape Cupcake’s best efforts to get her to join. 

Family photos with faux-stashes are totally in

Wurstfest in New Braunfels

I have spent more time slogging through mud in Canada than slipping on ice and snow. Everyone claims that January is supposed to be the coldest time of the year with temperatures around from -20 to -40 C. (That’s -4* to -40* F) But so far it’s been closer to 0 C (32* F)the whole time. And at the moment it is somewhere around 7 C (45* F). Texas is colder than that right now! What is going on?

Today’s Exploit:

In November we went to Wurstfest. My parents were in Texas for my marathon and my dad’s birthday, so we thought a party would be good. 

Naturally one must wear a hot-dog hat to a hot-dog party. 

That orange watch is an object of fascination to 4-year-olds

And make sure the kids take some pictures. 

He was actually taking a picture of the guy in the Robbin Hood had, but Cupcake photo-bombed

Picture Week

It’s picture week. Because I finally transferred the last 6.2 months worth of pictures from my camera to my computer.

Today’s Exploit:

I went to the cabin in the fall. 

And fought with a beaver. 

And saw the leaves.

A Short Trip

My family is growing. Myrtle Mint was joined by Maya, who is her cutting. Then we acquired Allison (Ally) the Aloe. It was just the 4 of us for a while and all was good. 

But, out of the blue, one windy and not-at-all-cold day a nice young man joined us. His name is Jack the Cactus. Jack lives in the bottom of a windshield wiper fluid jug and grows little red and supposedly edible fruits. 

The thing was that no one knew where he came from. It took me a month to track down the guy who found Jack, dug him up and put him in his wiper-fluid home.

Today’s Exploit:

I recently made a short trip for my work.

My manager called me and told me that they needed me to go to Canada. Evidently the north has more work than we do and fewer people. And no one else on the loan list had their paperwork together. 

So I had a day to organize my work stuff, and was told I had 2 days to organize travel info, pack and get going. Also, schedule some training stuff.

Luckily they re-thought that and gave me another 2 days to get myself put back together and to actually believe that they wanted me to leave the country.

So I got everything done, and planned my flights to give me enough time to sight-see a tiny bit.

When I got to the airport I noticed that the section that usually says “Economy” said “First”. But who pays attention to details like that? 

But then we were getting ready to board, and I didn’t have a group number...and I was sitting in row 3. And then it finally hit.

Somehow I had managed to get first class seats, and my job paid for it. 

And then I was really classy and slept through the whole flight because my sister made me run all over trying to send her a spare key. She was really clever and locked hers in her car. Hehe. 

PS Happy New Year

I May Update This Blog, Someday

I started this post 7 days ago. It then spent 4 days unsaved on my desktop with a few unexplained numbers in it, followed by three days with the same content saved as “untitled” in my blog folder.

Today’s Exploit:

I had some vacation just before Thanksgiving. While part of the reason for vacation was my parents’ visit, the other part was to run a really long ways.

A REEEEALY long ways.

I ran a marathon, the Rock and Roll Marathon in San Antonio, to be exact. That’s 26.2 miles. And I really wanted to do well for my first one, but I kind of tanked just over half way through. 

Things were going well, and I finished the first half at least 30 minutes faster than my other races. But then I started getting cramps. First in my right calf, then my left. Then they got worse. And when I tried to walk it off I’d get cramps up thigh, and going up any hill that didn’t immediately make both calves so tight I couldn’t reach my toes meant my hamstrings were going to cramp. 

Therefore I walked most of the second half, and took almost 6 hours to finish, 5:49 to be exact. That was an hour and 49 minutes longer than my goal time. 

Stupid cramps.

Anyway, I didn’t come in last, so there’s something.

Rankings:

148/207 Women 25-29 yrs

2448/3111 Overall

Holiday Post

Happy Fourth of July. Be patriotic, have a barbecue and watch the fireworks (if fireworks aren’t banned due to fire restrictions). I’ll be wishing I was with you, and not staring at some boring computers.

Group Picture Time

A cookie:

Today’s Exploit:

So, after being goofy and taking lots of crazy pictures their mama came out and made them sit still so we could take group pictures.

I couldn't resist tickling, they set me up.

Photos with Boys

More running pictures at Evergreen Trail Runs!

Today’s Exploit:

On my last day I remembered to take out my camera. And I made Eli and Cavan sit still, mostly, for pictures with me.

Cavan:

The crazy face

The tickle face

Normal!

Eli:

Oops, a finger. That lens is in the wrong spot!

I said, "Don't move!"

A good one!

It’s hard to get them to sit still. They wiggle and giggle and want to take pictures of everything.