And a 6 week surprise too...

So, I've got about six weeks until the triathlon.

I'm sure you're getting tired of hearing about it, right? Me too. almost.

So here is something new for you to hear about. Another thing with six weeks.

People keep asking why I'm not planning on participating in the triathlon in August as was originally planned...so......

Surprise!  Six Weeks. 

Who knew? Certainly not me!

Can you count? As long as my body keeps cooperating-so far so good-I've got the green light to keep training and go on as planned.

I'm due in late November, so let's hope my ability to hold babies as long as possible keeps up and we don't end up with any more October birthdays!

We'll see how this one works out!

A happy surprise

I went running again today (kind of becoming the norm-who'd have thought?), and decided to go a different route.  As far as I knew, I was hoping to hit about 4 miles on this run.  

Little did I know that I miscalculated and did almost 5!  If my clocking of it is right-I ran 4.8ish miles!  Holy Cow!  Yay me!

Feelin' the wind in my teeth; sagebrush and a block

Yep, that's right, my teeth.  

Because my hair is always pulled back when I go running.  And my teeth aren't perfect so the wind can go between them.  

Except it makes them cold.  

Especially since we have this glorious cold snap going on again.  Back to running with gloves on.  What an annoyance, especially after running in a tee and capris on Friday.  But hey-I did it again. 

Ran without walking that is.  Especially since I ran w/out music yesterday.  I figure if they won't let me use my Ipod during the triathlon, I may as well start practicing w/out it.  A bit harder to zone out w/out the music, but interesting to see where my thoughts went.  

That's big for someone who subscribed (until fairly recently) to the the theory that one should not run unless being chased by a large dog, or someone with a gun.  

Now I appreciate it though.  Besides-this is my view:

Granted, I usually run when there's more light out, but how do you beat that?  It's nice to run away from things out into a lot of open space.  

 

It's kind of nice to have 40min uninterrupted just out in the open.  Even if the wind is cutting right through my clothes, just short of blowing me completely off the trail and half my body is numb.  It feels good sucking in the smell of sagebrush.  It reminds me of all those camping trips to the middle of nowhere when I was a kid.  I love that smell.  Especially right after it rains.  Snow doesn't quite evoke the same "freshness" smell out of the sagebrush.   The trail I usually take runs through plenty of this.  It smells good out there.

Hopefully I can start increasing my distance at a decent pace. 

So the block-two different workouts right on top of each other.  Shorter than the real event will be, but I did it anyway.  Biked then ran.   Typically my legs feel like Jell-O after biking, so I've worried about how on earth I'll be able to walk, let alone run after a decent ride.  After swimming. 

Last week I only biked 5 and ran 2 (the real thing is biking 12.6 and running 3), but a decent first block with plenty of time to add milage over the next 6 weeks, assuming my body keeps cooperating.  The goal for this weekend (barring snow, which wouldn't be surprising) is bike 7 and run 2.5-3.  

And I just realized that the swim for this tri is only 300 meters, not 400.  

I might just make it after all.  

A baby shower and a head wound

I've left home.  To a baby shower that should be 45 min away.  Thanks to Saturday traffic and road construction, it's over an hour and a half drive.  

And I still need to stop by Babies R Us to get the last piece of the gift.  Of which they are sold out.  

Of course.  

Thankfully my sister met me there so we drag around the store for entirely too long picking out a few extra things and improvising for what is missing.  Her gifts were supposed to go in the diaper bag she registered for (which was sold out), so we found a basket instead.  It worked I guess.  Would've been cuter in the bag since it was a bunch of diaper bag essentials, but whatever.  

Where was I?

Oh yah.  

Getting ready to leave the store and get to the baby shower (thankfully it was an open house so being late was ok!).  

The phone rings.

It's my dear husband.  Who proceeds with "I'm REALLY sorry to bother you, and you don't have to leave and come home since the neighbors are home.  But, um, Lincoln has a gash in his head."  

Me- "Oh.  How big is it?"

Him- "Um, pretty big.  About 3 inches.  Pretty deep."

Me- "Like worthy of stitches?"

Him - "The deepest one we've ever had.  I'm taking him in."

Me- "Ok.  I'm stopping by the shower then I'll head home."

Him - "Don't worry about rushing since the kids are taken care of.  I'll call you and keep you updated."

Lovely.  

The shower was fun-I love seeing cute pregnant women.  Especially first timers.  So innocent.  So unsuspecting.  heh.

I ate a very large piece of chocolate cake.  It was yummy.  Passed around my baby and chatted with some cute cousins and aunts, then had to suck it up and head home.

I'm going to spare you people the pictures since some of them are kind of graphic.  If you dig that kind of thing or are just morbidly curious, you can see them on Aaron's blog HERE.  

I arrived home to him running around the yard like nothing ever happened.  Except he has a band aid on his head and is thrilled that it has Spiderman on it.  Good times.  

Currently, he sits here shooting me with a sponge curler that he is using for a gun.  With cookie crumbs on his face.  Irritated that I won't let him take a shower.  Completely oblivious to the stress he caused his father today.  What does it say about me and my life that it just seemed like a routine day?  

Probably a good thing considering the number of injuries I will likely witness in the next few years with the number of boys in my house.....

As promised...

More shelf pictures!  'Cause what's more exciting than shelves?  

And if you've really been waiting to see more shelves here, you need to get out more.  Go!  Now!

After mulling around what should be done with all of our storage things, dear sweet wonderful husband of mine decided to take this one by the horns and started building.  A boy and his power tools.  Awwww......

With our midget army, my obsession with fabric,  and a love of Christmas decorating, we had more than enough storage totes in the basement to build a small fort.  Then there's the food storage, camping things, rotating baby storage, a set of drums, a guitar, a trombone (I know-seriously?), filing cabinets, enough educational stuff to homeschool every age level from 2yrs old up to, well I don't know....I'll stop there and spare you the rest of the report.  Let's just say it was a LOT in our storage room.  

Enter this little project:  

(((Ummm...find the missing picture of project in progress!!!)))

Hallelujah!  

And the kids loved helping and got to spend some quality time with Dad.  Winners all around!

So, what is the finished product?  FULL.

I told you we had a lot of storage totes.  

But now I have space-GLORIOUS space-in my storage room.  Now-reserve judgement on this mess, I'm still in the cleaning out/reorganizing phase and there's still a lot of work left to do here.  But good golly, it feels good to have at least a little bit more order going on down here.  Now we just need to pick up the other chest freezer that someone so generously offered us (THANK YOU!  I don't know if you read this blog but hey-we seriously appreciate it!), move one freezer downstairs (the other will stay in the garage), and finish moving a few more things so that everything is neat and tidy.  

Oh, and ignore the corners of the shallow shelving-I'm still working on those spaces.  And on filling the empty spots.  

The best news?  (aside from the fact that we could live on this for a good while if we needed to)  All of this, including the wheat, actually gets used and rotated.  Look at me learning to be practical and all that good stuff.  Who'd have thought?  Don't ask anyone who knew me 15yrs ago.  The definitely wouldn't have thought.  I mean thought that about me.  A few of them did in fact actually think.   

And believe it or not, there are actually some things canned by me in there!  YAY me!  Next up:  canning butter.  Yup.  Really.  And hopefully a lot more canning this summer and fall.  

Trying something new

Not the background, but I needed something bright and springy anyway.

This:

Ah heck, why not? I enjoy blog stalking way too much, this just makes it easier! Not to mention there are prizes involved! And really, I'm not a picky girl-any of the Target gift certificates (oh, say, #19, 20, 22...) would just make my day! Or the Kitchen Aid mixer (#58) would be a killer Mother's Day gift for my cute mom.

And ironically it was through an online friend that I found this whole thing anyway! Thanks LL! : )

So-if you happen to be someone stopping by from UBP-say hi! And yes, I realize I didn't really introduce anything about myself in this post.  Let's just say I have an Incredible family.

(wow, that was corny)

If you're curious for more, read your little heart out!

Making a Happy Home Monday

It's Monday! and let's face it, my home is desperately in need of some happiness this week! Sadly, I'm not sure what today's project is going to be, but hey, maybe it will motivate someone else if my past few weeks of MHHM are out there. Maybe.

What's Making a Happy Home Monday? Scan back a few weeks and find out. (how's that for snarky?)
Or you could just hop over to my good friend LL's blog HERE and read all about it. Join in and link yourself up over at her blog!

So it's been what....three or four weeks? Yikes. Never fear-there has been plenty going on here. Like there's ever not a million things going on here. But I digress.

Three weeks ago made for a SUPER happy Monday. 'Cause how can you not be happy at the Happiest Place on Earth?

Ahh....I miss mid-seventies and sunshine. These little tastes of it are nice, but I'm SO ready for this snow that's currently floating down to go away! And yes, we'll all wearing matching shirts. I'll explain that when I finally get around to posting stuff about our lovely trip.

But reality is, well, real, and we had to come back home to work and school and all that rot. It is good to be home. Especially after spending a couple of days with some good friends of ours in Vegas who make me want to come home to make my home a better place. LOVE these people! And their home is so beautifully elegant-and yet so simple- I love it! No overloading of, well, stuff just hanging out. It's like staying in a Pottery Barn catalog for a couple of days. They always inspire me to come home and clean out and dress things up.

So-upon returning home and kicking back into gear, behold the power of little projects:

First, the fridge. I skipped the before. It was kind of one of those things where I opened the fridge, screamed, slammed the door, opened it again, screamed again, shut it again, made a wish, then opened it again and realized that it never would fix itself. Even if I left that leftover dish of whatever back in the corner, contrary to popular legend it never would get up and walk away on it's own. Keep in mind this is shortly after returning from being out of town and I hadn't gone real grocery shopping yet, just a quick trip to Costco.


Apparently the staples in my house are eggs, cheese, lettuce and carrots. Oh, and sour cream back there? Plus a basket full of Aaron's food from work. (it has to be brought home every weekend)

Don't judge me.
At least I could eat those random things off the shelves in my fridge 'cause it is stinkin' C.L.E.A.N. (and I'm happy to report that two weeks later it still is. Woo-hoo! If you don't have 2.3 million children you do not understand how much of an accomplishment that truly is).

NEXT!

The pantry. Oh, the beloved pantry. In a perfect world, it'd be twice this size, but I'm so happy just to actually HAVE one in this house, I'd gladly dance circles in this baby if I could. (I tried. It doesn't work with the door closed. Just in case you were wondering.)

Before:

(keep in mind our staggering population of little people)

And the after:

TA-DA!

But wait! There's more! If you call now, you'll also receive an extra-oh wait, sorry.
As I was saying-there's more! My dear sweet wonderful amazing indulgent husband made me some extra shelves! To fit these lovely little plastic storage tubs! That house my baking decor! Frosting! Sprinkles! Chocolate blocks! Many different kinds of chips! Frosting bags and tips! Flavoring! Etc, etc, etc! (Aaron loves exclamation points! So I wrote these contents this way just for his enjoyment!) Plus one box containing 5, yes FIVE, opened bags of marshmallows. Next kid who opens a bag of marshmallows gets flogged.

Ah, bliss. So much more wonderful than trying to stash them in my cupboard that my brood can reach and routinely enjoys pilfering. (SEE HERE) Look at them up there undisturbed! Ha! They are happily hibernating until I break them out in, oh, hopefully an hour or so. (I'm being female this week (sorry guys) and desperately needing some sugar)

And last Monday, well, no projects, but a killer dinner and some company. Tried some new recipes (lasanga and apple dumplings). Well worth it. Aaron said it was the best food he's had in a long time. I wasn't sure if that should offend me or flatter me, so I picked flattery. Besides, he ate himself sick so it all worked out ok. ; ) And it sparked a week of good cooking, so we had a week full of happy tummies.

(Oh c'mon-if you'd had a picture of your midsection hanging out in photobucket, you know you'd have done the same thing! One day mine will look like this again too. maybe.)
And now there's a chocolate sheet cake sitting in my kitchen. Which will make a very good lunch today. Mmmmm.....chocolate......

So next up-more shelving! If I can finish things up today, I'll post some pictures. If not maybe I'll do a Totally Terrific Tuesday or something. Really. You'll LOVE this one. So stay tuned!

Wait! One more!

But only because I was going through my email.

And there was an email of etsy shop highlights for the day.

And this was, well, yah.

You know someone out there was just hanging on to highlighting this product for a Monday morning.



oh, and in case you aren't a dog lover, this etsy shop has something for your feline friend as well.


Wow.

Still not as good as the Spongebob dog costume that was featured on Headlines (The Tonight Show w/Leno) years ago. It still sends me into a fit of hysterical laughter just thinking of it. (Sadly, that version is apparently no longer made as a thorough Google search only brings up the new lame version that consists of a spongebob cutout hanging around your dog's neck.) But still, nothing starts your week off quite as good as a dog dressed as Abraham Lincoln.

Unless it's the Quote of the Day.

Catching up

Coming soon. I promise Kel.

I have trip pics and project pics and all sorts of good stuff. But while you are waiting-

Just a refresher:

This:


Is Four.

And my husband makes me happier than anything else in the whole world. What a good sport! : )

Quote of the Day

With thanks to my love....

"So now, do Turkeys lay eggs?"



Thank you for providing a shining bright spot that will instantly bring laughter no matter what this week might bring!

Love you!!