Random thoughts from the weekend…

1. I love library book sales! My husband and I  went to the preview where the books were limited to 10 per member.  I got a couple of books I wanted to read, and some I’d never heard of but they looked interesting. The history books are my husbands.

2. Knitting has been slow, I’m not sure why. However, I am very motivated to finish the felted bag I’m testing for Rubys N Purls.  Especially after I received these in the mail for being a test knitter. Also if I was waiting for someone to test knit a pattern for me I’d be getting a little fidgety about it. Here is the progress as of Friday, but it does have more done now, I love the Olympic trials for getting knitting done. The colors are brighter but it was dark and gloomy outside when I was trying to take this picture.

3. After church on Sunday we stopped at LLBean and I ran home.  There are two ways to get home, well two that I clocked on mapmyrun.  I thought they were the same length (9 miles).  Wrong, I was going for a slow run at about a 10 minute pace, plus it was pretty hilly, but after an hour and a half, I wasn’t near home.  Oops, so instead of 9 miles, I ran 12.2 miles.  Other than being thirsty and bug bitten it was a good run.   

 This was some of the scenery from my run (pictures taken last weekend not while I was running).

4.  Trying to do a bike race on a mountain bike–not good. Tri for a Cure had a practice ride and transition clinic on Saturday, I rode my mountain bike because it’s what I have.  I know my daughter and can’t share a bike but before I shelled out lots of money on a road bike I wanted to try on the mountain bike.  I guess I thought I could just get another inexpensive bike for us.  But since she bought a wetsuit and we want to do the ROMP next year, in addition to the Tri for a Cure, I guess I need a road bike.  On the way home I stopped at the Triathlon store, I’ll be knitting out of my stash for a long time…but they measured me and will fit the bike to me when it comes in so at least I’ll be comfortable riding long miles.  I love riding, it’s so amazing how much faster that 12 miles is on a bike!  

5. Mittens is hanging in there, the kids are at camp and asked me to try to keep him around until they get home on Thursday.  Ummm, okay but it could be hard, I had to take him to the vet for fluids today. Oh and Thursday is the last day the vet will be open until July 7, I’m not sure he’ll last that long.  Now he’s on pain meds to make him more comfortable.  Poor guy, he had a rough life until we adopted him, then he got to sleep on beds and hang out inside, even though we made him move here where he hates the snow.  He’s eating, fresh fish I’ve poached for him, but has started weaving when he walks like he’s drunk. It’s not been the best year for us and our old pets this year.  I’m tired of saying good-bye to pets.

 

Mittens…

…is our cat that we adopted after he walked up to Mary and me when we were cooling down from my run.  He’s a cutie, he’s also tolerant of our dogs.  He was abandoned by his original owner, we aren’t sure why because he’s a mellow guy.  Anyway, he was about 11 when we decided to add him to the zoo, he put up with us adding Mercy and then Grace.  They love him and show it with lots of kisses, as you can imagine he doesn’t love them back, but sometimes he’ll sleep next to them.He’s been losing weight, before graduation he went to the vet because he was down to about 5 pounds.  He’s never been big but he lost half his body weight, it turns out his kidney’s are failing, which since he’s about 17 now shouldn’t be a big surprise but you never want to hear your pet is dying.  We took him back to the vet today, his kidney values are about the same but he was dehydrated so the vet tech taught us how to give him subcutaneous fluid.  We came home with an iv bag and needles so we can give him fluid every other day.  The things we do for our pets.   He’s currently sitting on my lap purring while I try to type this on my laptop.  

When I am running I think about all kinds of stuff, somedays I wear my ipod shuffle but most of the time I think; it’s theraputic.  Anyway, the other day Mercy and I ran past a historical marker, the plot of land was owned by one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  What I started thinking about was who lived in Maine in the 1700’s?  I mean there were no roads, it’s pretty remote where we live…but in 1776?   Maine was still part of Massachusetts back then.   It takes us about 2.5 hours to get to Boston, I can’t imagine traveling there on horseback or with a horse and buggy.  We drive down the 95 often enough to appreciate how far it is to Philadelphia.  This is not the best picture I tried to fix the contrast but it’s still hard to read, but it’s the historical marker.

Thinking about living back then, especially in the winter, makes my two year old broken dishwasher less annoying. It helps put things in perspective, back then they had to draw the water from the well, heat it and wash the dishes with soap they made.  Aren’t appliances wonderful? 

 

 

 

5K and blueberry pie

  On Saturday I ran a women’s only 5K.  It was a busy day in our house and even with three cars, we needed 4 so I ended up using my bike to get to the race and home.  I figured it was good practice for the duathlon.  Anyway, they had a raffle after the race so I waited around because I wanted to win the $25 gift card to Dunkin Donuts.  Instead I won a 10 pound blueberry pie. My bike doesn’t have a basket or any way to carry stuff, so I rode home balancing the pie on the handlebars.  I’m sure it was a sight. 

I have to get busy raising money for the tri for a cure in August, there are some ladies who have raised around $2000, my daughter and I have raised nothing, we kept thinking we had time…not anymore.  So I guess we need to get busy, maybe we’ll hold a contest involving yarn.  We’ll see what we can come up with.

Knitting has been slow, there is just so much else to do, plant in our barren yard, finish school, train the dogs, clean the basement, and the biggest time sucker of all–try to find a cheap airfare to California in July!  I am working on a test pattern for Rubies and Purls.  This is what I have so far, I also have two pair of socks I’m working on and a scarf to finish.  I have too many projects and not enough time, which is why I’m not on the computer too much these days. 

Grace is a bit of a challenge, she’s very agile so nothing is safe, for example we have a couple of rubber ducks on the side of the bath tub, she likes to hop up and steal them.  This is what my walks look like from my perspective at the end of the leash…  Have a good day!

 

I read way too much, but right now, while preparing for graduation this coming weekend, I don’t have a lot of time. When I have too much to do and want to escape yet be inspired I read Robin Jones Gunn, however this book arrived on Saturday and I’ve barely had time to look at it. Robin always points me back to God and reminds me what it is to be a Christ follower, some days in the jumble of stuff on my to do list I forget.

This is a week when I need the reminders but the to do list is out of control and I offered to make the Senior Board, a tri-fold board of the seniors pictures, it sounded like a good idea at the time…however I am still waiting for few of the pictures. To add to the stress level around here my husband is on a ship, and trying to get to Virginia in time for the graduation ceremony (it looks like that will work out okay since the ship had a fire and is pulling into San Diego earlier than expected.)

On the running side, I had a 5K on Saturday, my advice if you are over 30, don’t do a 5K where most of the runners are on the high school track team! My first mile was a bit over 8 minutes and I saw the first runners on their way back a couple of minutes after I passed the first mile! It made me feel old and slow…

I found this while looking for something (I forgot what, it probably had to do with the bills) on the internet and thought it was cute. We, however, do not seem to be suffering from global warming, at least not here in Maine.

Life is still busy with school work, graduation, gardening, running, dog training, knitting and reading. Knitting is kind of stalled but I have a new project (it’s felted, always a motivator.)

Today I got an e-mail from the organizers for tri for a cure with an offer to do a training run with Joan Samuelson. Okay, I know I can’t run at her pace but thought it would be fun anyway. I was going to do a 5K on Saturday but think I’ll do the 5K with Joanie instead. (I sound like a stalker don’t I?) We saw her last year in the 4th of July 10K in Freeport, well, I who had a possible stress fracture and couldn’t run, saw her finish while waiting for the kids to finish.

We went to a dog show this weekend, Grace’s breeder won best in breed with one of Grace’s uncles. It was an educational experience for us, we did sign her up for a show in June, the breeder with be there too so she’ll help us with the grooming. Mercy and Grace are both doing agility, I usually handle Grace and my daughter has Mercy but tomorrow the kids have a night track meet “under the lights” so I get them both, we should all be tired after 2 hours of agility. Grace is doing well, but we figured she would she loves to jump over things. Mercy is good with everything except the teeter-totter which she hates! Oh well, she’s getting better, hopefully Grace won’t be afraid of the equipment. They are both hiding right now since I have the ironing board out to work through the mountain of wrinkled clothes. The ironing board is scary, but it’s waiting for me to get to work, oh joy!

I’ve been kind of lazy about running lately, even with a duathlon in August so to motivate myself I signed up for a 5K and a couple of 10K’s. The 5K is on May 24, one 10K is in June and the other 10K is the L.L.Bean Fourth of July run. My son is running the 5K too (but he’ll finish while I’m on the second mile), we’re all doing the 10K, I should be able to finish near his time as he’s a sprinter. Then there is the duathlon in August…but the big question is should I do the MDI marathon (there are 167 days to train) in the fall?

Knitting is slow, I am considering doing a knit-a-long with a local yarn store for the ribby cardi. Last night I made a swatch that was too small so tonight I try again with a different yarn (I have lots of different cottons hanging around here.

This is a great song and video especially when you are facing a milestone in your life , or just aren’t appreciating how great life is. The picture on the front of the youtube is not the best but the rest of the video is good. It’s Point of Grace’s song Turn Up the Music.

I saw this on a blog in my bloglines today…Carol Hummell has this tree cozy on her website. It’s amazing, there are more pictures on her web page.

I haven’t yet found the time to make a tea cozy and she’s made a tree cozy; but maybe she doesn’t have kids at home anymore. My to do list seems to be growing daily. I offered to do a trifold board of the graduating seniors pictures (that were taken a few weeks ago when we went to Virginia) for display at the graduation, the pictures arrived today. I need to send the invitations but only half of the senior pictures have arrived. At least the invitations were easy…

So if I’m quiet for few days that’s why, we have another college tour this weekend, trees and shrubs to buy and plant, cars to wash, planters to fill with annuals, and as usual dogs to train, a house to clean and teenagers that need to eat. Oh yeah and to train for the duathlon–which involves buying a bike and helmet, we have a men’s bike but neither one of us is wild about riding it for 12 or more miles. We can’t share the one girl’s bike.

The Lord your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Zeph. 3:17 NIV

secret pal 11

Today  I had a long to-do list.  It was a busy weekend leaving me with the feeling of being behind before the week began. As I was rushing around trying to get the laundry and dishes done before walking the dogs and doing school work, I heard a horn honk. We’re a bit rural so the mail person often honks if we have a parcel.

On the way back to the house I was trying to figure out what i ordered, and realized that except for the new mudroom shelves from Pottery Barn, I hadn’t ordered anything.  Then I saw it was from London and was more perplexed, I opened the box and it had yarn in it, I thought maybe it was from my yarny godmother. It was, the card was from my first Secret Pal from SP11.  He had serious personal problems and dropped out. Today the package he started before the problems began, arrived in the mail. There is a book, yarn–two skeins of Giotto (cotton/rayon ribbon  made in Wales) and Cotanani (a cotton/wool blend) and some pens that my son tried to swipe.

The dogs found the last bit of snow to play in after their walk, the play pool to cool them in the summer is still full of snow.  Mercy seems to miss Mary but Grace is keeping her busy, every so often she sulks around but only until Grace pounces on her and grabs her toy or tail to distract her.