Non Sequitur

So, back in the day (pre-Monkey, pre-Duhdee for that matter), I used to run.  I loved running, I’d run 4 miles every morning before setting out on the rest of my day.  It cleared my head, reduced stress…it made me feel strong and healthy.  Then I stopped.

Duhdee and I moved in together and my commute doubled.  Suddenly there seemed to be no time for a run.  Then along came Monkey and time was in even shorter supply.  More than that though I no longer felt strong enough to run for any distance.  I was tired, I was out of shape, I was unmotivated.  I kept saying I needed to start again but I never did.

Last week a co-worker mentioned that she and another co-worker were in a “friendly” competition to loose weight by December.  She was going to start running to help the process along.  I was shocked when my mouth opened and I said “Oh, OK.  Do you want to run together after work sometimes?”  and she had the freaking nerve to say “Sure!”  What have I done?!

So, on Monday, during our lunch break we went to Marathon Sports and had gait analysis done and then we each bought a new pair of running shoes.  In a fit of madness motivation I suggested to Duhdee that he join me in a training program called “Couch to 5K” in preparation for a 5K that my firm participates in each year.   Once he agreed I mentioned it to my co-worker.  She’s reluctantly on board as well.  What have I done?!

This morning another co-worker (the one who is also involved in the weight loss competition) was informed of our plan to run in a 5K next spring and she suggested we run in one this fall as soon as we finish our 9 week training program.  No reason to wait, she said.  Right!  So.  We now have 3 5Ks up for debate starting 10 weeks from now!  I found the Fragile X 5K Road Race/Walk and I want to do that one.  I don’t think my co-worker will want to do that race so it now appears that Duhdee and I will be running in 2 of the 3 5Ks.  What have I done?!

Duhdee and I went on our first training run last night.  It was not fun and though that program looks easy, it’s much harder than I thought.   Tonight is training run #2 with my co-worker and I have shin splints from yesterday’s session.  This should be torture fun!

Can I just ask one more time, what have I done?!

I am a huge fan of Snickerdoodles.  When I was in college, we had tea every Friday at 4.  There was always a variety of cookies and other snacks and my very favorite was the Snickerdoodle.  I’d never had, or even heard of, a Snickerdoodle before college.  After college I began looking for a recipe, it seemed like such a simple cookie so I never expected how difficult it was going to be for me to find one.

Last night, some (oh. my. god.) 11 years after graduation, I finally found one I like!  Prior attempts have resulted in a wide variety of results and none of them very good.  One batch resulted in my being banned from the kitchen for quite a long time.  Another batch turned out the size of very brown, lumpy, oatmeal pancakes.  Of course I was too stubborn to just toss that mess out and attempted to eat them.  *gag*  Even the DOG (the dog who eats Monkey poop, no less) wouldn’t touch the cookies.  Ha.

Those dark days are behind me now though.  Monkey “asked” to bake by getting out his stool, the stainless steel bowl we use for cookies and stealing some flour from Duhdee who was making a roux.  I recalled that my mom had bought a cook book at a recent yard sale that had a simple sounding Snickerdoodle recipe in it and a short phone call later we were underway.

They came out awesome, I’m very pleased.  Of the 41 cookies that I baked only 31 made it into the storage container.  At one point Monkey was sitting in the living room using my laptop when I heard his little feet pounding across the floor in my direction.  He ran into the kitchen, snatched a cookie from the cooling rack and raced back to the laptop to finish his video, lol.

Or, more precisely, what do you give a man who buys himself everything he wants?  This is the dilemma we face each year with my father.  Christmas is usually pretty easy, we hand over IOUs to my mom and dad for Red Sox tickets and then plan to spend a couple DAYS waiting in the infamous online waiting rooms praying for a chance to buy tickets at face value and spare ourselves the horrendous markup from resellers.  *Sigh* so not looking forward to that again.

Anyway.  His birthday is always a challenge.  He was asked point blank this year what he wanted and he said “I buy myself what I want.”  NOT helpful.  Duhdee and I racked our brains and finally came up with the PERFECT idea.  We went to one location and when we calculated what we needed, he advised us to go to someone else.  He just couldn’t deliver the quantity we needed at a reasonable cost.  Bugger.  So we began calling this other supplier.  He owns his owns his own business and he’s described as “independent” which basically translates to “has no answering machine, good luck!”  For 3 days we tried calling and we had no luck.

On the day of my father’s birthday we still hadn’t managed to reach the supplier so we had to come up with a good IOU.  We decided to give my dad a sample of his birthday gift.  After dinner with a bunch of their friends my mom handed my dad a gift bag and said “This is from all of us” and indicated the family members.  My dad looked scared, lol.  He told the others “It’s not good when they gang up on me!”  He weighed the bag in his hand and finally opened it up to find…another bag, this time a small paper bag with the top folded over.

He took that bag out and gently squeezed it in his hand.  He looked confused.  I think he knew what was in the bag at that point but he couldn’t figure out what it meant.  He slowly opened the top of the bag and peered in and then looked at each of us.  We were all snickering at this point but the guests had no idea what was going on.  Finally he spoke, “Ooookayyyy, dirt?” At which point everyone cracked up and started tossing out ideas as to what it signified.  “They think you’re older than DIRT!” was the final concensus amongst the guests, lol.  Once the laughter died down we let him know that as soon as we could get in touch with the supplier there would be a WHOLE lot more of this being delivered.  Enough to put in a front lawn!  He was then very excited.  It was something he’d been wanting to do for the last two summers but never seemed to get a chance to work out how much and where to get the loam he needed.

Earlier in the week he’d been out mowing the long strands of grass growing among his rocks and we kept hearing rocks bouncing off the mower blade.  It was so loud that the neighbor (who lives 1/4 mile away) was giving him a hard time about how many rocks he had mowed this week.  He mentioned more than once, after we’d decided what to get him, that he needed to take care of the “lawn” soon.

There was much discussion that night, around the campfire, about whether we’d picked the right supplier or not.  There were several options in the small town where their camp is located and they all come in varying degrees of “independence” which, it turns out, sometimes means “unreliable” and sometimes means “total @sshole.”  So it was decided that we’d picked the right guy for the job.  My dad and Duhdee stopped by the guy’s house the next morning to leave him a note in an effort to at least let him know someone was looking for him!  By the time we left, a week later, one of the estimated five loads of dirt had been delivered.

Isn’t it purty?  My dad made the sign and then made the entire family POSE in front of the dirt.  In the rain.

It just wishes it were 🙁

Don’t be jealous 😉  I’ll miss making my rounds of everyone’s blogs but I’m so ready to be out in the sticks with no stress and nothing to do but watch for moose.