Friday, July 17, 2009

Teddy Bears Picnic

If you go out in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise.


For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.


Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.


Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.


See them gaily dance about.
They love to play and shout.
And never have any cares.


At six o'clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they're tired little teddy bears.


If you go out in the woods today,
You'd better not go alone.


It's lovely out in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.


For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic


Every teddy bear, that's been good
Is sure of a treat today


There's lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play


Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Darn Fooey Nuts


Today's post is happily filled with all the complaining and crap I can put in it. You don't like it? Too bad (or as Jos would say, "Suck it.").

Yes, I want to complain. Not because I want to be like Damon, but because I thought it would be a good outlet. After all, according to the blog title, we are a curmudgeonly folk.

Number One.
Although we bought our house a month ago, we didn't actually move in until last weekend. On that very day, something magical happened that caused 2 freakin' rooms and a hallway, plus a bunch of freakin' sockets, to loose power. Nice. Yes, we checked the circuit breakers. Yes, it was all good. But no freakin' power. Everything worked fine during inspection, but I began to suspect that the Seller's post-inspection repairs had something to do with it. We finally called a freakin' electrician, and it actually turned out to be an irritable outlet. Seems plugging in the TV shorted everything on that side of the house (but not the freakin' outlet that the TV was plugged into!). Two hundred and forty freakin' dollars later and we are back in business. Yeah, yeah, "Welcome to homeownership" and all that freakin' awesomeness.

Number Two.
Now that we had power restored, I can actually do the damn laundry (the outlet that the washer was plugged into was not working through all of the above #1). I started the damn washer last night, and it was not behaving like the good little washer I have grown to love. In fact, it flat out refused to drain after the damn wash cycle (and laughed at me when I emptied all the water out and tried to "spin"). Silly Laura. I am not a damned licensed electrician, so we had to have someone come in for #1, but I WILL fix this damn washer. After investigating on the intarwebs, I suspect it's either a bad lid switch or the damn pump. Prepare to surrender, you feisty washer. I will conquer you! Meanwhile, there is a ton of laundry waiting. Do I go to the damn laundromat?

Number Three.
Despite everyone's tremendous work last Friday, entailing 4 truck loads of crap, we still did not manage to get all our crap over from the old house to the new house. Crap. And what's left will not all fit in our car. So, crap, I am having to rent a truck - again - to get the last of our crap. Crappity crap crap crap.

Number Four.
My damn leg. (Yeah, I can't think of any more freakin' cuss words to use, so I'm breaking out "damn" again. Wanna make something of it?) Still swelling and yesterday my foot decided it too wanted to join the party and looked like a damn sausage. You know those damn sausage feet that old ladies get? Yeah, that's me. 35 and damn swellin'. Of course I packed my damn compression stockings - you heard me: I'm 35 and have to wear damn old-lady compression stockings - and of course I can't find them, so I had to go out and buy some more damn stockings. Damn.

Number Five.
There are freakin' (What? I can't use "freakin'" again? Huh, huh? Oh, but "damn" was good enough. Come here and talk to me about it. I thought so. And no, I don't have the chutzpah to say "f***.") boxes everywhere. I can't find a freakin' thing and I am sick of freakin' packing and unpacking. The house is a freakin' mess and with work and the kids and still moving stuff and the washer problem, I'm too freakin' busy or tired to unpack. And part of why things aren't getting unpacked is because we need some new freakin' bookshelves. There must be 10 freakin' boxes of books just waiting to be unpacked - but no-freakin'-where to go.

Number Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten...
The damn tendonitis in my wrist is in full force due to all the "activity". The kids still call 897 freakin' times a night. And all the ivy crap that is still on the house needs to be taken down. Never mind that we still have not installed the damn handrail, we need to get a freakin' screen door for the back (and maybe front) door, and whatever the crap else.

Damn freakin' crap.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Marveling time

The kids are four years old these days. I find that amazing. Has it really been 4 years since they were these little babies?


Where does the time go? Why do I keep writing these introspective posts? Will we be all done with moving and unpacking before Halloween? (Oh, sorry, my mind must have wandered into crazyland there for a minute. What was I thinking? Christmas, Laura, Christmas...) Anyways, if I keep writing like this, Damon will start to think that I want another baby. (No, I do not . At least not right now...)

What am I writing about anyways? Oh yes. My children's childhood is so remarkably fleeting, as witnessed by yesterday's demonstration by Kestian. In true "I'm a big boy, now" fashion, Kestian peed standing up. Now it probably wasn't the first time - as he has told me he's done it at school - but something switched for him and now he only wants to pee standing up. Like he crossed the fence and found the green grass. Of course, we had to have several discussions with Adelaide that she still - and always - must pee sitting down. All I kept hearing from her was "Why?" (Why indeed?) And shall I mention pooping? The kids openly wondered if this new revelation could be transferred to #2. Yes, we had to explain that everyone must sit for that. No exceptions.

Our household is so fun.

Anyway, Kestian is not the only one I've been seeing changes in. Recently I've been caught off guard by some of the things that Adelaide says. I have no idea if they are normal things that a 4-year-old says, or that she is just really good with language. Take the other day, the kids were playing in the office closet, and Adelaide decided to sit in the closet (with the light on) but with the doors closed. She was having a conversation with a recent The Economist magazine (as we all often do), and kept talking about "competition." I think she liked the way the word sounded, because she must have said it 150 times. But what really got my attention was when Kestian kept opening the door and she kept telling him she wanted it closed. Exasperated, she blurted out: "I've told you multiple times that I want the door SHUT!" Since when do 4-year-olds say "multiple"? In that context? Or take the other day...she was getting in her carseat and there were all these toys left in it. She said to me "Hold on Mommy, I need to organize my toys." Organize? Seriously? Why does that seem odd to me to hear that from her? Maybe these aren't the best examples - but I'm always amazed at the vocabulary she uses.

So I guess it's things like this that catch me off guard every time I notice the kids bounding forward in life. Sure I never want them to stop discovering new ways to void their bladders, or using polysyllabic words, but I'm having trouble keeping up.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Together...

Dear Kestian and Adelaide,

I'm sitting here looking at pictures I just put up on our website, and am taken aback by just how much your lives are intertwined. You have known each other since you were in my tummy - together - kicking, squirming, fighting for more space. Since then, you have had to share everything from the moment you joined the world - together - and ever since.


I have watched you grow everyday and since raising the two of you is all I know, I often think nothing of it. But then I look back at our pictures, and see how you share your popsicles

or play a game together
or just have a grand ol' time in a pile of leaves...

Do you know how connected your lives are? Do you know what it would be like if the other were missing? Do you know that forever you will be best friends, brother and sister, and twins?

Oh, what it must be like to always have someone so close always with you. You are together for your annual well-visits, your first day at a new daycare, and every night for bath . You often bicker and argue, but truly, you are the best playmates and the bestest of friends. You each have strengths that can only be brought out by the other.

My dear Adelaide...
I call you my Monkey Princess because you are so beautiful, so stubborn, so independent, so smart. I often hear from you "I want to do what I want to do" and I smile on the inside. I love that you have realized your independence at such a young age, and I know that will carry you forward in life. There will be nothing that keeps you from your dreams or wishes. Yet, you are so kind and if your brother is sick or hurt, you are the most nurturing child I have ever met - offering your comfort and attention when he needs you the most. I can see you doing so many different things when you are all "grown up". Life is yours for the taking.

My sweet Kestian...

Yes, you are my Puzzle Piece. You fit to me in all your ways like the last piece of a puzzle - making me, and all of us, complete. You are so creative, so caring, so kind, so fun. You make me smile when you ask a thousand questions, like "Why don't airplanes have turn signals?". Your curiosity and your sweetness goes unmatched. You take care of your Blue Baby as if he were real, and I hope that you never feel shy about showing how much you love those things that are important to you. And your love of learning about everything around you makes me realize that you will not be stopped until you know all there is to know. I wonder if all the world's books will satiate your appetite one day.

And when you are together, my dear sweet children, you become something more than just Kestian and Adelaide. Together you create new friendships, where one otherwise might not. Together you become a team as you build the biggest castle, where otherwise it would just be a tower. Together you create stories, draw the most beautiful art, and make the best pizza.


I'm so glad to know you - each of you - in your own separate ways. And I am just as glad to know you - together - as you build and create and nurture each other as no other brother and sister could.

With all my love,
Mommy

Monday, July 13, 2009

Moving Day


Friday was move-all-the-crap-that-we-can-from-one place-to-another day. A day filled with fun, work, and oh-my-god-what-do-you-mean-there-is-STILL-more-stuff?
  • 7:00am - "Wake up kids - do you know what today is?" "Independence Day?" Indeed!
  • 8:00am - "Have a good day at school!"
  • 8:30am - "No, I don't want to buy the additional insurance"
  • 8:45am - "No, I don't want to try your new Cafe Mocca today"
  • 9:00am - "You gonna eat that?"
  • 9:15am - "What, there's no ramp?"
  • 10:45am - "Throw everything in the garage!"
  • 11:30am - "I need squishy stuff!!!"
  • 12:30pm - "Wow! We should be finished by dinner..."
  • 1:15pm - "Who wants Fazoli's?"
  • 2:30pm - "They say it's supposed to be 90 degrees today"
  • 3:30pm - "I'll have a grape snocone, please"
  • 4:30pm - "Think it will rain?"
  • 5:45pm - "Does someone need to get the kids?"
  • 6:15pm - "Mommy, why were you so late today?"
  • 6:30pm - "Everyone take a break - there can't be that much left..."
  • 7:00pm - "You go make another trip, I'll unpack...hmm...where is the box with my medicine?"
  • 8:30pm - "What do you mean that's not everything????"
  • 9:00pm - "I should have ordered TWO of the cinnabread"
  • 9:30pm - "You like IKEA, huh?"
  • 10:00pm - "There will be no more trips tonight. There will be no more trips tomorrow."
  • 10:30pm - "Do I need to put the contract in the drop box? Where is the contract?" "At the house - in my purse"
  • 11:00pm - "What do you mean you have to go to potty - again?"
  • 11:30pm - "So, how are we going to get the rest of our stuff?"
Moving sucks.

New Look!

Yes - you are in the right place. While I enjoyed the way I had the blog set up, it was time to move ahead again. New paint in the house, new look for the blog. I've actually been thinking about updating the look now for a while, but it wasn't until I saw Julie's updated blog that I decided I needed to blatantly follow in her footsteps. Of course, I mistakenly deleted a whole bunch of widgets, but now I can decide what really needs to be here. And dammit that I didn't get a screen shot of the blog before I deleted it. Wait a minute...oh thank you Google for caching my blog...

Anyhow, enjoy.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Refore and Bafter

For those of you not of Facebook these days, here are the full line of pics - before and after - of all of our hard work!

Living Room - Before

Living Room - After

Laundry Room - Before

Laundry Room - After

Garden Shed - Before

Garden Shed - GONE!

Front Room - Before

Front Room - After

Master Bedroom - Before

Master Bedroom - After

Kids' Bedroom - Before

Kids' Bedroom - After

Playroom - Before

Playroom - After

Tomorrow: We move.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Survival...


The 4-year-old feral beasts stalk their prey. Their sights have been set, the plan has been discussed. It is in motion. The drum beats thump in the distance as the childer approach. Dum, dum, dum, du, dum, dum dum... Soon they appear, wearing their native camouflage: the she-male in a green butterfly dress, face and arms marked in purple - a clear sign that she wields her markers with abandon; the boy-child adorned in a green turtle shirt, limp rubber snake in hand indicating that he takes no prisoners alive!.

Their approach - act fast, act innocent, do not relent. They come up from behind, but I already knew they were there. "Whatca doin' Mama?" "Can I help?"

Oh they are good! They have practiced their trade. Suddenly I am faced with having to respond to their attack. I must be strong! I think quick: "Oh, no thank you. Go and play, or I can put on a movie. Mommy's trying to pack." I try not to tremble, but my fear is apparent.

They don't buy it. They push on. "I'm bored. I don't want to watch a movie!" Damn, they persist. They want to wear me down. They press forward like hyenas, moving closer, tightening the circle. There is no escape!

They reach in the boxes, pulling out fresh meat. "Can I have this flashlight?" "I want to play with this notebook." Ohhh, the pressure is on. Stay strong, girl! Divert, divert! "No. no. I just packed those. Let's leave the stuff in the boxes. How about I put on Shrek?"

Will they buy it? No. They don't go for it. They go into full-attack mode. "But I'm bored. I don't want to watch a movie. Can I have the flashlight, just for a little while?" "Yeah, and I need some more paper."

Oooohhh, the sweat is pouring now, my pulse is racing. There is no way out. Do I relent? But then I will be susceptible to further attacks. Then what? I may never survive. I dig deep and find some strength. "I said to not touch the stuff I packed. Now go do something else. There is still plenty else to do."

I wait. They wait. We stare at each other. Who will back down? One minute. Two minutes. Suddenly, they step back. "Ok. I think there is still some paper downstairs." "Yeah, and I was going to build a barn for my snake in the playroom." "Ok, bye."

They suddenly fade into the grass. The drumbeats stop. There is peace. I have survived. I pack the next box.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Interconnectivity Electronic Homesick Blues

Cracked is awesome. I know that sounds weird because they were, at one time, a second-rate Mad Magazine ripoff, but it is all different now. Years ago they ceased being a print magazine and went online only, except their online content wasn't Mad Magazine-type stuff, but more...well, it is difficult to describe except to say immature intellectual stuff.

Much of their stuff is list-based, which is odd but works out well. A few years ago they really hit their stride and posted a bunch of really excellent things, some are pertinent to my latest semi-sad missive about the internet.

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable which is really good an touches on a lot of thing I not able make into thought.

Of somewhat related interest is What is the Monkeysphere?

Interestingly, both are written by the same person.

Communication Musings (or Why I Blog)


These days, we just don’t live close to family. I have always lived a transient life, if you will. Living in a military family as a child, I traveled around the country a lot; as an adult, I’ve continued the movement. And all of it has given me experiences that I am grateful for. I’ve loved my brothers in Philadelphia, gotten sand in my toes in Virginia, said “aloha” in Hawaii, eaten crabs from the Chesapeake, seen the gardens of New Jersey (there actually are some!), felt the heat of the Sonoran desert, and seen the horses race in the Bluegrass. And those are just the places I’ve lived – so many more I have visited. But all these stops have taken me to places where my family is not.

With all of this movement, communication has been an ongoing challenge in our family, both when I was growing up, and still today. I remember when I was a kid, some of my family used to mail around a cassette tape. On it were messages that family members would record, where we would talk about what was going on in our lives. I’m not sure who started this tradition, but it went on for a while before it eventually faded out. I remember hearing tapes of my grandparents talking about vacations or whatnot, and then I’d have to record something about what I was doing and send it back. It was a different way of communicating back then – different than just writing letters. I liked hearing the tapes, but hated making my recordings. I suppose I thought my own events were just not that exciting and I could never think of anything to say. I also didn’t care for the way I sounded on tape, so I tried to keep my recordings short. And of course, back then, I didn’t “get” why were making all these tapes.

Also back then, I remember my mom working on MRS VY: a family newsletter that we circulated around every so often. The name was created out of the initials from the families involved with the newsletter: M (McCaughey) R (Rowan) S (Smith) V (Vizy) Y (Youngquist). People would write in their contributions, which would be put into the newsletter, and then the newsletter would get sent out. I can so clearly remember the old lady that my Mom had drawn to represent MRS VY (Mom, do you still have that drawing?) But the newsletter, too, died out.

Then came the dawn of the Internet and my brother introduced me to email in the early 90’s. Email was so different back then. We used PINE or some program like that to open our mail and send messages back and forth. It was a very crude system, but fun and instantaneous. As email became more pervasive, my parents got on and I could email them instead of writing letters. Soon many more in the family joined in email and we had a quick and easy way to communicate that didn’t involved the cost of long-distance calls or the slowness of US mail. I was able to “talk” to my parents about college stuff and connect with my cousins who were also in college. While I always have kept in touch with my parents, I’m not sure I would have connected with my cousins if it weren’t for email.

Then, around the mid 1990’s, I started playing around on the WWW (who says “World Wide Web” anymore?) I discovered HTML and how to create web pages. I quickly got into building web pages like everyone else, with silly graphics (remember the BLINK tag?) and links to my friends web pages. But soon I discovered that I could use the web pages for communication (wow! I know!). So I reincarnated our old family newsletter into a family website called MRS EVHOY (now with the Ellis, Hesler, and Orsetti families) where everyone could send (through email) their updates and I would post them to the website. Soon I was reconnecting with aunts and uncles that I’m sure I would have not heard from otherwise. Alas, this too faded out over time, but was fun in its heyday.

Then I had kids. Everything changed in so many ways when I had kids – but especially with communication. I thought back to why Granny and Pop-Pop used to send around those tapes when I was a kid - because I’m sure it was so they could hear my voice and know how I was doing. So when I had kids, I wanted to make sure that their grandparents (and the rest of the family) were very much able to know all about them. Because time is fleeting and I don’t want a moment to go by and have my children’s childhood missed. Yeah, yeah, it’s boring to everyone else, but not to me. (That’s also why I take a thousand pictures of them. Because I can never go back to when they are 1 or 2 or 3 and take those pictures again – so better take them now!)

Anyway, so when the kids arrived, we armed ourselves with a digital camera and a website – determined to document our thoughts and events with our children, so that our family (who is so far away) can know them as if they were here in our house, and see them as they change every day. We took tons of pictures and posted them on our website (www.orsetti.com), and tried to email all the funny and interesting stories to everyone I thought might want to hear about them: my parents, Damon’s mom, friends, other relatives…. I became swamped with emails and I could not remember who I wrote what about. It became overwhelming.

Then I discovered the blog. Writing the blog has become a self-serve sort of way for anyone who wants to know about us and the kids to come and read about our lives. We try to share as much as we think the family and friends would like to know about, and also as much as the kids would like to one day read about. Because while I’m doing it for the family now, I’m doing it as an exercise for the kids later. I thought it would be nice for them to one day read about what vacations they took, what they dressed up for Halloween, how much their parent’s stressed over moving them to a new daycare, etc. (It should also help them a great deal when they are in therapy. I hope they get a discount from their therapist from all this documentation!!!)

But Damon recently mused about how some things, like blogs, can take away a certain amount of those conversations that one might have if the blog was not there. And it was striking that he wrote that, because just recently I had a conversation with someone mirroring that thought: I was visiting with some friends recently and they were asking me if our family was going to go on vacation this summer, and almost incredulously I said “Uh, no, we just got back from Canada. Didn’t you read it on our blog?” to which they replied, “But if we read it on your blog, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.” Indeed, that is a good point, and most certainly what Damon is getting at. But I also think that “blog-talk” if you will (Hey I said it first! I call copyright!) can allow people to know more about you and lead to even more conversations, and I don’t think they take away from conversations you could have had. See the thing about blogging is that while I take a lot of time to write about what is going on, if you don’t read it, you are left behind. And trying to get you caught up most likely will never happen. Look, I’m not looking for the world to read my blog, but I'm just not going to rehash everything I’ve written the next time we talk. Because more than likely the next time we see each other, we’ll have other things to talk about. This is exactly what happens with someone that I’d really like to read my blog. I’ll say “Come read the blog! You are welcome to know us and all that we are doing!” but alas he never reads it. My emails to him include links to the blog, but he still never visits. I feel like we are living and sharing our lives, but he is too busy to read about it. And you would think that because he hasn’t read about what we are doing on the blog that we have all the more to talk about. Quite the contrary, we chit chat about this and that, but most of the “interesting things” (that I have blogged about) seems so out of context or so irrelevant when we are talking that I feel awkward telling him about them, so in the end our conversations leave me feeling: You don’t know what’s going on in my life, do you? And it’s all just right there - on my blog!

And in the past year that I have been on Facebook, I have found some dear old friends (Hi Jos! Hi Terri!) that I thought I might never get back in touch with again, and having moved places and moved jobs I’ve also been able to reconnect with friends and past co-workers that I also thought were well lost to the movement abyss. And even more recently, my family has been getting on Facebook. Right now I am “friends” with 10 family members (Hi Kevin, Kyle, Bobby, Vicky, Sarah, Ted, Thor, Jason, Jamie, and Susan!), and counting. If I wasn’t on Facebook, I’m sure I would not be in frequent contact with these people, just because of the sheer fact that trying to email 3 or 5 or 10 or 20 family members (as anyone knows ) is a lot to keep up with. Sure, there is a certain voyeuristic component to it – and I’m not sure what I’d think about running into someone who said “Oh I saw you on Facebook the other day” – but it is an interesting angle to think about. But the benefits of keeping in touch outweigh the weirdness (I think).

But anyways, blogs (and Facebook) have become such an important way for us to share with our family and friends what is going on in our lives, just as the circulated tapes and the once viable MRS VY/MRS EVOY. There will always be ways to communicate with family and friends, and just as everything else mutates or dies out, I wonder what will be the future of blogs and Facebook. Meanwhile, I’ll share all I have on the blog, because when I see you later I'll have something else to tell you.

Witty Title About Blessingly Curses

This has nothing to do with any recent postings, but instead are the musings of someone who, despite being exhausted at 8 o’clock at night, cannot get to sleep even before midnight 1 a.m. [edited from when I actually posted].

Facebook makes everything too easy. I’ve read things that discuss how Facebook makes high school reunions obsolete, but in a way it makes them even more relevant, since you may have made contact with these people already and would be neat to meet with them. But I know what they mean. It takes away the specialness because it mostly already happened via Facebook and the internet.

The other day I was browsing through my graduating class in high school and noticed some people had kids (one had triplets I think). That was neat. I probably wouldn’t ever ‘friend’ them (I don’t like friending people), and I didn’t hang out with most people in my high school and probably wouldn’t start now, but still Facebook took something away. Luckily I cannot see people’s full profiles, only basic stuff and picture, but that is enough to see things like kids and marriages often. How does that shake out if you meet that person randomly later on? “How you doing? I have a couple kids.” “Yeah, I noticed on Facebook.” “Uhhhh, really, you’ve been looking me up on Facebook?”

Two things here: 1) it is a little creepy, though we all have stalked people we have known via Facebook, 2) You just cut off much of the discovery portion of the initial conversation.

Now, what happens if you come upon someone’s blog? God, you know much of their freaking life then (if it is anything like ours). We use the blog to keep family and friends abreast (heehee) of our life now that we have kinderfolk, but does this take away from conversations? I will often admonish (in a half(?)-joking way) my brothers or friends who ask about stuff that we post about with “uhhh, did you read the blog?” but that SUCKS. Should I feel like not talking about taking apart the shed because we wrote about it? Of course not, because telling a story once has never stopped me from telling it multiple times over (and that is just to my officemate). But I would imagine that people would feel satisfied for the most part with just reading the blog.

Oh yes I am fully aware of the good things that Facebook, blogs, and other intenetty stuff give us. Yes, we can re-connect with people. Yes we can stalk people we only vaguely new in high school from a safe distance. Yes we can write random venomous missives about names (sidenote: Bella is a crappy nickname for Isabella, the other options suck, and Isabella is a hugely trendy (in a bad ‘Jennifer’ sort of way) name, so just don’t do it people!). Yes we can keep people thousands of miles away aware of life events with pictures included. Yes, there is good in this, I know, I can see it.

But it is too easy. But it feels too necessary. I felt almost naked while at the new house painting because we didn’t have internet access, even though I had absolutely no need for it. I didn’t have time to use it, didn’t have anything I needed to see, and didn’t have the desire to get on the internet, but yet I felt like I was disconnected from the world. That is wrong.

My mind will wander, and I think of things, events, people, and other assorted crap. Sometimes it is great to be able to look up stuff I think about whenever I want and find out as much as I want (I was reading about Slavic peoples yesterday and found out that they cluster genetically so that the Serbs/Bosniaks/Montenegrins and Bulgarians/Macedonians form one related cluster, while the other (including Croatians and Slovenes, oddly enough) cluster together to form another related group). But that also includes people. I don’t want to be able to find out anything about almost anyone just so easily. It takes too much away, and not just human-interaction stuff, but more than that in a way that is hard to explain.

The internet is good, and I love it for all of its goodness. But its ease of information flow, while great, leaves a hollowness to the world. Great wonderful progress makes the world a better place, truly it does, but like the Industrial Revolution.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

1:17:57

I did it. I ran the 10k yesterday. With hardly any practice, I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I did run the whole way (Except one water break: you just can't run while drinking from a cup of water. Go ahead - try it.). But man, when I stopped running it was clear that I was not going to ever run again. At least not in the near future. In fact, walking became a chore (and still is). Yeah, I'm feeling it. But I'm glad I did it. Small personal goal met. World peace on its way. It's all good.

Since there is so much to do today, the rest of this morning's post will be pictures of yesterday's fantabulous event:

Me and the kids before the race

Damon and the kids before the race

Mulling around minutes before the race

The kids waiting for me at the finish line

Crossing the line

Hooray!!

Official race results...apparently my real name is "Lauren" (officially)
(As you can see, I place 2704th in the race, out of 3304 finishers. Next time I hope to at least place 2701! Watch out #2703, #2702, and #2071 - you are marked!)