Sunday Spice and a Dragon!

Today was picture postcard wonderful.

We stayed at home in our comfy clothes after sleeping in and enjoying a breakfast of smashed egg sandwiches (English muffins with Canadian bacon and a fried egg). While I started laundry and got art class set up, P and Endora make pumpkin spice cookies with icing and fresh pecans:

When those were done, I held art class and introduced Endora and P to the artist Paul Klee and his work. Then the three of us each made our own painting in the style of his Castle and Sun piece.

After art class, we set up P's germ experiment. We took bread and handled it with dirty (unwashed hands) then put it in a sealed ziplock bag. Then Endora and Merlin washed their hands with soap and water and handled another slice to put in a bag while P and I used a sanitary wipe instead of soap and water to do the same thing. The last two pieces were a control slice that no one had touched and one that the puppy licked (you know how they claim a dog's mouth is cleaner than a person's hands). 

After that, P made a model of the Earth with the inner and outer cores, the mantle and crust with Playdough along with a dragon to go with it :)

While she worked with her Playdough, I set about making this month's Cookie Monster Club cookies for Thomas, Sugar and Spice Coffee Slices!  We had the French doors open all day with the cool Autumn breeze and bright sunshine swirling with the scents of coffee and cinnamon and pumpkin spice.

The last load of laundry is in and I'm enjoying the last Sunday before school starts and my weekends fill with homework and papers. Endora is cooking rounds of pancetta to go on the cheeseburger sliders for dinner, the grill is fired up and life is good.

The Trauma of Being An Athlete

Merlin always says, "give me the bad news first so the good news can cheer me up."

So...

Bad news: biopsy confirmed a precancerous mole on the back of my left calf so had to go in for surgery today to have the rest of the area excised and was pretty much told by Captain Awesome there was no way I'd be running my first 8k next month with stitches in my calf.

Good news? Got there today and the plastic surgeon explained the lab had felt after examining the margins that they had gotten everything during the biopsy so no need for surgery or stitches today. Yay!

Better news? (Only my runners/triathletes will get this) I have had this thickening area on my second right toe along with a thickening of the edge of the nail on that toe. Honestly? Thought I had picked up a fungus athletes type thing from the pool or locker room. Finally thought maybe I should ask the dermo about it (was thinking I needed a foot doc but it's skin so they should be able to check). She took a look at it today and informed me it didn't look at all like a fungus. She said it was a callous from trauma to the toe as I run! And... Wait for it... Wait for it...

The thickened toenail was the same! I asked with controlled excitement if she meant like those marathon runners when they loose their toenails AND SHE SAID, "Yes."

I almost hugged her lol :)

Like I said, only my fellow runners and triathletes will get that ;)

I guess that goes to show I may be able to call myself the real deal soon ;)

Waffles and Pumpkins and Mums, Oh My!

Fall is here! And instead of sweltering hot days punctuated only with school buses and stores putting out the Xmas stuff to remind us... There is actually a coolness to the air!

This morning, I whipped up a batch of pumpkin waffles and made enough to freeze for our own healthier version of frozen toaster waffles. 

And, we found these gorgeous pumpkins at Wegmans yesterday! Way too beautiful to carve so we shall get carving ones later this month. We also picked out some gorgeous burgundy mums for the stone planters that flank the entryway.

We are headed out for shopping and to attend a birthday party luncheon then back here for chores (laundry just won't do itself) and I promised Merlin I would make him chicken fajita pizza for dinner with the fresh jalapeños from our neighbor's garden. He dropped off a huge bag of extra produce for us last night :) 

Sun Flowers

Warmed up with a nice run. It felt really good and I was in my zone. Ended lifting.

I feel good today. It was a long week and I'm still managing recovery from a sleep deficit but dinner last night with Spencer and.... I guess I need a nickname for the other friend ;) helped.

Today is a beautiful end of the summer day with a hint of fall in the air. The sunflowers were especially beautiful so I took some pictures for you:

0400

I worked two 15 hour days this week AND one full 25 hour stretch from Tuesday to Wednesday. 

I have today "free" (meaning I can stay home and deal with email...)

Instead of sleeping in, I got up at 0400 to go spin then do yoga. Today was the first day of that new Friday plan. Having had to miss every other workout this week due to my schedule being overcome by events I was anxious to get a workout in and actually didn't mind the 0400 wake up.

Going to head home now. Take a short nap... Maybe. Then I have a meeting at 1730 tonight and am looking forward to a relaxing dinner with Spencer after that. I need some down time for sure.

Back To School: Tea Bags, Muslims, and a Beautiful Run

I cut myself some slack last week after the Tri but while most folks use New Years to kick off new behaviors, goals, and resolutions... I have always loved the day after Labour Day to do the same. Back to school, start fresh, etc. I got up early to do a run. No timing or distance worries, just me getting my ass out of bed and forming a new habit (running in the mornings instead of after work). It was the most glorious run I have ever run. Seventy degrees, pre-dawn, and silent. I have never run that long that far without feeling tired or bored. Considering the last morning run before the Tri was a forced slog that left me wondering why the hell I did this, this morning was like a gift from Hermes for not giving up. 

The tea bags? I saw this tip on Pinterest that said to stick dry (unused) tea bags in your shoes to get rid of the smell and holy cow I think it works!!!! So, my feet smell like English Breakfast Tea but I promise you that is far better than the alternative :)

Muslims? Ah, yes. For my next trick:

I have mentioned before that one of the families in my neighborhood is Muslim and I like them and enjoy talking to them. They recently shared that their youngest daughter is struggling in school because kids (especially girls) are being vicious and mean to her. Most likely because she is gorgeous but she is convinced she is ugly. Y'all know by now I totally feel that pain. Add to that, her mom is fighting cancer (like a champ) and you have this poor kid who is just having a huge struggle in life now. She failed all last years SOLs and the school system passed her anyway (seems to be their pattern) and the parents are worried and want to help her but had no idea how to start.

They knew we homeschooled P so yesterday we sat down in our dining room and helped them get organized with a plan to homeschool. They will do some, use a local tutoring business for some and...yes...I, the great Satan will also be tutoring and helping out. Due to the mom's illness we are working on a plan where if she is having a super bad day, their daughter can come over and hang out with P. and, we've already planned a few field trips to include her in.

An interesting development at our meeting was that both their older kids (one in college and one a senior) are leaning towards agnosticism/atheism. The parents are a bit disappointed but the father is a scientist so actually understands the kids' thought process that has them where they are. It was a really nice discussion and when I shared a few Muslim homeschool resources I had found they were both decidedly insistent that religion and education were separate. They both wanted critical thinking and science to come first, faith was something you dealt with in a separate way. I told the dad he must have done well based on his older kids and he had this sort of sheepish "yeah....but..." look. The age old conundrum I am sure when it comes to those with faith that are scientists. 

All in all it was a super nice few hours with good people that want to do right by their kids, just as any good parents regardless of religion want. Having been immigrants, they come from a place that is pretty awful and they do not take the gifts the US gives for granted when it comes to freedom. Ah, well. This shall be an interesting adventure this year :)

On that note, P is making back to school pancakes for breakfast and I promised to eat one before I left for work so I shall wrap it up here.

Monster High Triathlon

The title is a bit misleading but summarizes the week well :)

First, Miss P has discovered Monster High. Seeing as that I don't give her an allowance but she's so good about helping around the house, I splurged yesterday and got her seven of the dolls and a video. We are watching the video as I type this... 

For those who have been waiting to hear how the triathlon went, it went GREAT!

The swim was 100 meters further then last year and the cycle portion was two miles further BUT I managed to beat last year's time by 37 minutes!!!!!

The swim went okay. Again, I wasn't the fastest but I did not have to stop to rest like the others. Oh, wait! I was NOT the slowest either!!! There were two people WAY behind me and one poor gal, I wasn't sure she was even going to make it through the swim. 

The bike went so much better than last year. I did not have to stop or walk my bike even once! It was awesome. There were even hills and I did each of them!! I was very proud of myself. 

The run was okay. I was hot and kind of pooped by then since I'd really hammered out the bike course. Because I cramped up so bad in the run last year, instead of waiting until I cramped to eat my sport beans, I went ahead and ate the package and downed a whole bottle of water as I started the run. No cramps this time!!!!!! I was about a quarter mile into the run when one of my slower swim buddies was coming back towards me on the run and he dropped like a rock and hit the ground in painful cramps. Poor guy could not walk. Afterwards, I shared the sport bean trick and gave him one of my spare bags of beans. (I'd have given it to him on the run but I didn't want to need it down the way and not have it).

I came across the finish line strong and got my medal. I drank a beer ( they had nothing else to drink.... Not even water... Trust me, I asked) and ate two sausages. Lol felt like I was in Germany drinking beer and eating sausage after a Tri. Then they posted the final times and I almost cried when I saw that I had shaved 37 whole minutes off my time even though I went further.

Wow. :) 

I lifted the next night with Awesome and that was not my brightest move. I gave myself the rest of the week off as a reward and returned to working out with a light spin class Friday night.

Normally, we workout on Saturday morning but this Saturday we took the day off, had a nice breakfast and spent the whole day shopping for school clothes and back to school supplies.

P is going to be attending a home school coop group this fall one day a week and taking some pretty neat classes in robotics and engineering. So she got a few cool outfits and shoes to wear for that along with some notebooks and folders. I also got some materials for her science experiments, crafts, art lessons, and some books for her reading lessons I have mapped out. And because she has been such a good kid, I got her some of the Monsters High Dolls and the first book in the series and one of the videos. 

I picked up some pretty new fall nail polish colors including one from Zoya called "Pepper". I also got some new shirts for work and a few new scarves. 

We indulged and slept in this morning before enjoying a nice breakfast. The first order of the day was to do the first art class for home school. P wanted to paint so I did a nice intro to water colors lesson on the back deck. Now, we are watching her new movie while the butter softens to make this months cookie club cookie for Thomas. Tomorrow, we have a meeting/luncheon with our neighbors as I am going to help them homeschool their daughter. In addition, AM asked for some help with his son and math. So it looks like I maybe be sharing tutoring academics this year for some other kids. More on that later.

Since this is back to school week, it's one of my favorite weeks to revamp my schedule and priorities so starting today/tomorrow I will be focusing on:

1. SIX new work projects!

2. My next graduate course starts

3. Studying some work related material on the side with AM

4. Need a costume for myself & P for the Renn Fair which AM's son invited us to attend for his bday

5. Halloween costume for P (and me if I need one)

6. Starting to plan my bday party later this year

7. Was asked to join a committee (outside work) to put on a large global event and accepted.

8. Training for my first 8k in October

9. Attending a new spin/active yoga class which will require me to get up at 0400 to attend once a week.

10. Getting ready for Thomas' bday in October

Still don't miss Facebook.... And the more I learn about some of the things they are doing....the more I am glad I bailed.

The movie is about over so it's about time to make cookies. 

xxx ooo

J