A Cold Day 5K

Yup - That's snow on the ground. Do you like the way it contrasts with the lovely Autumn leaves on the sign? Did I mention it's not mid-October yet? Despite the cold, and the early morning hour (for me, for a Saturday), these runners are a hardy bunch. Promise them a t-shirt, an official time thanks to little timing chips clipped onto their shoelaces, bagels, cookies and bananas when the race is over, and a shot at some door prizes, and out they come!

Nearing the end...

A race run well. In sixteen degree weather. With the snow falling down. Did I mention it's October 10?

Crockpot Buffalo Vegetable Stew

With the cold weather blowing in earlier this week, I was in the mood for crockpot cookin'.

1 pound of cubed buffalo meat, lots of new potatoes, lots of carrots, and lots of kale (but I didn't add the kale until the last 20 minutes of warmin'), and a quart of beef broth (made from "better than bullion" - next time I want to try it with miso as the broth).

Hubby brought home Dakota bread from Great Harvest, and we had bread and stew for dinner Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and then I had it for lunch on Thursday as well. The boy who now eats everything turned it down.

Have I mentioned the boy now eats everything? Parents of picky eaters, there is hope! After getting by for 14 years on milk, peanut butter, and Annie's Mac & Cheese (macaroni cheese shells and cheese, as they were known lovingly in our house for so many years), and growing to 6 foot two, at some point the taste buds shift just enough, and the hunger grows enough, that those limited food choices miraculously expand to include just about every item imaginable. Except for my crockpot buffalo vegetable stew.

Very Expensive Cookie Dough

The boy was worried. The coaches had made it VERY clear that the runners had to keep the cookie dough frozen. When his dad picked him up at 5:00, intending to get home in time for the boy to have a quick bite to eat before heading to the 5:30 guitar lesson, immediately followed by the 2-hour theater class, and he saw the huge carton of cookie dough orders, he was even more worried than the boy.

They came home and said we needed a family conference. How would we get all 7 orders delivered that night, since there was no way 9 boxes of $15 pre-portioned expensive FROZEN cookie dough was going to fit in our freezer? The freak-out level in our home was rising by the minute.

We hadn't been all that thrilled about this particular fundraiser for the cross country team in the first place, but the boy had eagerly shared the opportunity to buy $15 pre-portioned expensive FROZEN cookie dough with people at church, and because we are all so easily suckered into paying ridiculous sums of money for kids' fundraisers, he sold cookies to 7 people.

And how easy it would have been to deliver the $15 pre-portioned expensive FROZEN cookie dough had we been able to pick it up on a Sunday morning, and deliver it to everyone while at church. But the product was delivered to the boy's cross country team on a Tuesday, the busiest night in our household.

In an effort to keep the freak-out level from reaching melt-down proportions, I offered to attempt to make room in the freezer while Dad took the boy to his guitar lesson. If it wouldn't all fit, I would start making deliveries. If it did all fit, then my honey and I would still get to have our date night.

Fortunately, I inherited my father's master packing genes, and not only can I pack more things in the car than we usually need for a road trip, but I can find room in freezers where others think there is none.

As I put the last box of $15 pre-portioned expensive FROZEN cookie dough in the freezer, the boy came up behind me, rested his hand on my shoulder, and heaved a sigh of relief. And told me thank you in an incredibly sincere tone of voice.

"If we didn't have you, Mom," he said as he shook his head, "I don't know what we'd do."

Is there any higher praise from a teenager?

Renovating Mabel's Home

After 9 years in our house, we finally got rid of the overgrown and recently dying junipers that lined both sides of our driveway. When they were completely healthy and green, they offered some visual appeal to our otherwise non-existent landscaping, if you could ignore the way they sprawled onto the cement, making it nearly impossible for someone to get out of their car unless they parked in the middle of the driveway. Not long after we moved in, my dad made a valiant attempt to trim them back. Unfortunately, for the next 5 years, that left one section of the bushes with a gaping hole in it.

At the beginning of the summer, when Mabel (the duck) made a nest and laid her eggs in the section between the big tree and our front door, I was relieved that the gangly junipers finally served a purpose. The camouflage of the dying juniper and last fall’s leaves gave her the perfect hiding place. Unfortunately, the foxes got the best of things, stealing not just her first clutch of eggs, but the second as well, after which she must have decided that a better location was in order.

Before she left, one small section of the bushes was already gasping its last breath, and as the summer progressed, nearby sections soon succumbed to the lack of rain until more than half of the bushes on one side of the driveway were beyond resurrection. So when a handyman recommended by a book club friend came to price the various little problems inside our house in need of attention, I asked if he could get rid of the bushes as well. Turns out that landscaping is actually his primary specialty.

So for a very reasonable price, Phil the Landscaper/Handyman and two of his trusty employees arrived on Thursday morning to rip out those suckers with a fork lift and hatchets and chainsaws, and by Friday afternoon had laid down the mulch, river rock, and some tall-grass bushes on one side, and little rock on the other. In addition, various things in the house were in working order again, and some holes in the outside walls had been repaired. A new door handle and shaved-off door-bottom on our back door meant that we can now go out to the patio, and so can anyone else, without needing he secret password to get the door handle to turn or Herculean strength to yank it open.

Some more projects await our attention (or rather Handyman Phil’s) – the lightning-struck tree stump that is sprouting up new baby trees, the sad wooden gates leading to the back yard - but we’ve made a start. And all summer I’ve been trying to find the motivation to clear out about half the junk in our house that serves no purpose other than taking up space. After sharing living space with me (and my junk) for the past 23 years, I think my husband might just faint on the spot if one day in the near future I were to reveal to him a house full of wide-open spaces.

Misplacing the car

I was convinced it had been stolen. We parked on a residential street near the park where the boy was running his first cross country meet. It took a while to find a place to park, as the streets were packed with the cars of other parents, there to cheer on their teen runners. As we walked toward the park, I noted the number of the house closest to our car, and said it and the street name out loud. Even tried out a pneumonic device - "I'll-be-on Albion." Clever thinking on my part, don't you think? Coming back to the car, son and hubby took a detour to the nearest restroom. "I'll get the car and meet you at the parking lot," I said, expecting to get to the parking lot before they did. Only as I walked down Albion, I didn't see our car. I kept walking. Still didn't see the car. Walked further down the street, turned around, walked back up the street. No car. Woo-hooed to hubby and son in the parking lot, motioning them to come to where I was. Prefaced my statement to assure them I wasn't joking, and told them I couldn't find the car. Yikes. Had it been towed? Had someone stolen it? I knocked on the door of the house across the street, and the woman there was kind enough to look up the number of the police department in the phone book. Only she couldn't find it, so I called 911. Reported that my car had been stolen. Couldn't remember the license plate, but tried. Their records didn't indicate it had been towed. She said they'd send an officer. Did I mention that the boy had been feeling sick to his stomach since mile 2 of his 3-mile race? So here we are, on a quiet street in Boulder, son sick as a dog, and hubby heading down to the very far end of the street just in case the car was further along than we realized. Two dog-walkers stopped to commiserate wtih us. They both mentioned that the next street over looked very similar to Albion, with a little jog to the right in almost the same place. "But no," I said. "We both noted that we were on Albion." One of the dog-walkers said she was making a loop and would check, just in case. When hubby returned. I shared the dog-walker inside information. He headed over to the other street as well, just in case. Then the police officer arrived. Didn't roll his eyes at me when he told me that mini-vans were not a high priority on car thief lists. Noted that it's easy for visitors to get confused about different streets when they park in the neighborhood for cross country meets. Said he would drive around the block to look for the car before he wrote up the stolen car report, just in case. And then who should come walking up the street from one direction, but the dog walker, asking if our license plate had such and such letters. And who should come driving around the corner from the other direction, but my dear hubby, in our stolen car. Only it hadn't been stolen. We had just misplaced it. I thanked the dog-walker. I thanked the police officer - profusely. If he'd been standing outside his car, I just might have hugged him. Fortunately he was sitting in his car. I'm thinking they're a little particular about boundaries and personal space. So. No stolen car. Doug's briefcase, my briefcase and laptop, and all the work we were both bringing home for Labor Day weekend not thrown in some dumpster in Niwot. (Maybe the car thief would have kept the laptop, but everything else would have been tossed.) It gives one pause to be thankful about having reliable transportation to do things like go to your son's first cross country meet. His first race ever. After joining the team just 4 weeks ago. And he finished the race! And we had a car to drive home in. Be thankful for the blessings in life, especially if you have to be reminded of how lucky you are by thinking for 40 minutes that something important is gone forever when in reality it's just around the corner.

The foxes at midnight

A stifled quack outside our bedroom window and the sound of crunching leaves got me out of bed to check on Mabel in the middle of the night. I looked outside and discovered two foxes creeping towards Mabel's nest. They froze as soon as they saw me. I went to the front door to shoo them away, and not long after I heard some angry quacking from the neighbor's yard, and then they snuck back toward her nest. Mabel may have gotten away, but the foxes took all her eggs. She came back to lay more eggs the first time the fox did this. I'll watch to see if she comes back again. She may have decided it's just not safe enough. Sigh....

I scared Mabel out of her nest when I was taking pictures. Here's the best look at her in the grass.

Mabel and her eggs are still there. Mabel is a Mallard duck who has chosen our front yard for her nest. She's nestled in the Junipers very close to our front door, and the dried leaves give her lots of cushioning for her eggs, and superb camouflage. Trying to see her in the pictures? In the top photo, her beak is pointing to the right, and her tail is to the left. In the next photo, she's facing the opposite way. In the last photo are 7 of her 8 eggs.

So far, so good

Success: Coke-free for 6 days. Getting there: Hit the gym Monday & Tuesday, but skipped it today. Give me a while: Chocolate is getting me through Coke withdrawal.

New Year, New Me

What will 2009 bring? Will I still have a job? Will my husband be relieved with the welcome respite from his extra job duties of the past 4 years? Will my son survive his first semester in high school? There's no way of knowing. So I'm betting on something I actually have control over. Now that I've known about my high blood pressure for two years, and have been taking medication for one year (which got upped 6 months ago), not to mention the anti-depressants that I re-started in 2008, it's time to lose those extra pounds. My goal: 50 pounds by Dec. 31, 2009. 5 pounds a month, with a little room for a bad month or two. Step 1: No more Coke. Had my last one on the plane on New Year's Day. It's only been 4 days, but hey, I haven't managed even that in a long time! Step 2: Utilize my free membership at the gym that supports the nonprofit I work for by donating memberships to full-time employees. I went this morning. I'm going tomorrow morning. Son is on notice that he'll have to ask me the night before if there's something he needs for school that he can't find. Dad does not have my superior lost-item-detection abilities, and I'll be sweating away on the eliptical when they're heading out the door to get to the bus stop on time. Step 3: Control my eating. I haven't given up chocolate. Yet. Best to approach these things slowly. Eliminating Coke cold turkey is hard enough. None of this Oprah yo-yo dieting for me. I'm starting a marathon that I want to finish, so no sprinting to a svelt physique by spring break. Slow and steady is my mantra. I know I can do this. I know that I need this. Wish me luck!