On my 9-mile long run on Sunday I realized it was time to buy new running shoes since the balls of my feet were starting to hurt so Monday I went to the store and bought a new pair of shoes…which at this rate should last me about 6 weeks…

Tuesday, I visited my cousin and her chillin’s for the afternoon. It was the first time Evie has actually played with (rather just be in the presence of) other kids. I loved watching her interact with my cousins; she seemed excited to be playing with other small people, like her.

Yesterday, during a break in the rain I drove downtown to pick up our share at the co-op. We joined an organic co-op…I don’t think I’ve told you that. Here’s how it works: after you pay your yearly membership fee you can pre-order all organic and/or local produce for pick up the following week. You order by Sunday and pick up is the following Wednesday at a Lutheran church near downtown. Jason and I are loving it! It’s really challenging my cooking skills and his palate. Last week after I looked at the random assortment of veggies in my possession I decided to make “co-op soup”. It was actually quite tasty.

Unfortunately, the rain killed my run yesterday. I had gotten dressed to go and then walked outside only to realize it was still misting. I don’t mind running in the cold rain but I didn’t want little E to get soaked, which is what would have happened. So, I turned around went back inside and made a pot of soup instead.

Today, I have to make up the 7-miler I missed yesterday, I have a monthly MOMS Club meeting later this morning and this afternoon I’m going to my parents house for their mid-week visit with E. Somewhere in there I need to get Evie to take a nap…preferably two naps…and I need to put up the laundry that’s been sitting on the couch since Monday.

The good news, tomorrow is FRIDAY! Wooo!

So far I am doing better than I expected. I’m not exactly sure what I thought marathon training would be like but I didn’t expect it to be this…easy (knock on wood). It’s more about putting in the time than anything else. The increase in mileage and intensity is really forcing me to watch what I eat. I made the mistake of making a batch of Tea Cakes earlier in the week and I felt like a Tea Cake during my subsequent runs. Note to self: only good-for-me foods allowed!

I am pushing Bob, our jogging stroller, on all my runs except the long runs on Sunday. Every Sunday we go to my parents house, they watch Evie and I enjoy a stroller-free run. I LOVE Bob (a BOB Revolution, hence the name) and would highly recommend it to anyone
(totally worth the rather steep price) but any run without Bob is world’s easier than even the shortest runs with him. There’s just something about pushing a 20 pound baby in a 25 pound stroller that adds an extra level of difficulty to something as simple as running.

I am beginning to experience a little joint achiness after each run but I am running more miles than I have ever ran before. Weekly and sometimes semi-weekly visits to the chiropractor are helping me stay shin splint and hip pain free.

My weekly mileage is up to 30 but I’m headed to 44. The most difficult miles of the week are the “plus” miles – those extra miles tagged onto the end of my long runs that make them longer than the long run the week before. Exhaustion, body aches and boredom all make those the most grueling miles of the week.

Last week my long run was 12 miles…it took 2 hours. Two hours is a long time to think about…everything. Sometimes I think about the upcoming week, sometimes I do math in my head, sometimes I think about my grocery list. I always enjoy the peace and quiet around my parents house but I’ve GOT to find another route…the 1.5 mile out-and-back that I’ve been running is starting to get old. Jason has started calling them “country miles”, he says it doesn’t seem as far if you talk about it like that. 8 country miles vs. 12 actual miles. I suppose he’s right. BUT…

…my longest run is scheduled to be 22 miles…that’s 14.5 country miles…no matter how you say it, that’s a lot.

The more I think about it, this house and I have a lot in common. The house looks good on the outside and if you don’t look too closely, it still looks great. But after you’ve been here for a little while you begin to notice that it’s starting to age. The stairs creak when you walk up them. The windows need replacing. Some of the drawers in the kitchen don’t close all the way. There’s an unidentified critter living in the attic.You know, stuff like that.

That’s how I feel about myself. I still look pretty good from the outside if you don’t look too closely. I’ve got a nice body with an odd, but albeit good tan. When I’m wearing make-up and dressed nicely I feel good about myself. But I have some age spots on my face. My hips pop with every step I take. My belly button is stretched out from being pregnant. I have a 6-inch scar from my c-section. The fingernail on my right index finger never really grows from slamming it in the car door. I don’t see as well as I used to. My body is starting to show signs of age.

Not that I’m complaining at all. I love this house and I love myself. Yes, we could both use a little remodeling but our current state is nothing that can’t be lived with. Except for the critter…and those last 3 pounds of baby weight…gotta fix those.

Since Jason had the day off today and it was a particularly beautiful, January, Houston day we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and head to Herman Park so Evie and I could share with Jason our favorite beautiful-day activity.

We found us a spot in the shade, spread out our blanket, played and ate lunch.

After lunch we walked over to the train for a ride!

Unfortunately, halfway through the train ride Evie fell asleep.

Poor baby! Konked out!

While Evie was napping we walked over to Rice so Evie could see where Daddy got smart and learned to work hard.

She liked Rice…

It was nice getting out of the house for a few hours and spending time together as a family…and having a baby gives us a great excuse to ride the train!

I keep two blogs. This one to write about personal matters and another one, Crafty Culinarian, to write about food and things relating to food and the things that happen in my kitchen. This arrangement has worked quite well for several years but the more I think about it the more I realize that I need to consolidate the two. I’m not quite sure how to do this without loosing some readership – though not a lot of people read my blogs, I don’t want to loose the few that I have.

Ideally, I’d have one blog with several categories and I can just have a “my kitchen” category for all my kitchen related posts. It will be so much easier to keep up the one blog, multiple category idea and for me easy is the name of the game.

In other blogging news, I discovered Microsoft Live Writer. It’s a part of the Windows Live suite, free software available off the Microsoft website. I downloaded the suite for the Windows Live Photo Gallery software and got the Writer as a part of the package. I didn’t even know it was on my computer until a few days ago and I’ve been trying it out. I really like it. For all my blogging friends out there I highly suggest you give it a try.

That’s all for now.

I am constantly being held hostage by her nap schedule or lack thereof. I prefer not to be gone when naptime rolls around, though sometimes that’s impossible. I try to wait until after she wakes up from her morning nap to go run errands, go jogging, visit family do housework, etc. which leads me to my current situation.

Evie is learning a lot now-a-days. Her level of curiosity is high and she is very into exploring her little world. She has just gained the desire to get stuff out of reach, the very beginning of learning to crawl. She will lay down on her stomach from sitting up and then reaaaach for an item far away. She uses her tippy toes to try to push herself forward but hasn’t quite figured it all out yet. She’s also starting to “talk” combining vowels and constants into her own little language.

“Bwah. Ah. Bwwwwwah. Ga. EEEEEEE! Da. MMMMMMMM.”

She is learning so many new skills! And all she wants to do is practice. Badly. So badly that she refuses to nap.

Laying in the bed with me her little eyes will start to close and she’ll drift off to sleep. Just as I think I’ve been successful they’ll POP back open and she’ll roll over to grab my phone, glasses, remote control, sheets,  face…anything that is just out of her reach.

“Ba. *raspberry noise* Bwah. Ba. Mmmmmm. Ga! *raspberry noise*”

*facepalm* PLEASE. SLEEP.

Her two (ideally) two-hour naps have turned into 10 20-minute naps with bouts of playing between. Not conducive to getting ANYTHING done. Not laundry. Not grocery shopping. Not running. Nothing.

After about 4 days of this I about ready to jump out the window…

…JK. Not really. But I have found myself googling “8 month sleep regression” and finding results that tell me what I already know. She’s so excited about learning new skills that she doesn’t want to nap. All the websites agree. This should pass in 2-6 weeks…

Previous phases were:
Awwww!
So. Tired.
Please stop crying!
OMG, I love you!
…and my favorite…
WTF were we thinking?!?!?!

Let me start from the beginning. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to start putting more effort into my appearance before I leave the house. The goal: put on nice-ish clothes and make up (gasp!). Today when I went to Central Market I had on a nice pair of jeans (Lucky’s mentioned in a previous post) a cute pink shirt I got on clearance at LOFT, a new pair of black boots I got for Christmas, a cute camel colored ruffled shawl….and make-up! I’m rockin’ my new self confidence!

We pull into the parking lot of Central Market. I get Evie out of the car. Grab my purse (I banished the diaper bag), reusable shopping bags and walk in the store.

I decided to eat lunch (Sushi! Yum!) and feed Evie before we started shopping. I grab the sushi, a drink cup, (keep in mind I’m holding Evie and my reusable bags so all this is being done with one hand), pay and go fill up the cup with Coke. While at the fountain a very nice older lady sees the disaster unfolding and very kindly offers to help me. Of course, I decline her very generous offer and tell her I don’t need help…after all I’m wearing make up. I am in control!

Famous. Last. Words.

I find a nice empty table in the corner perfect for somewhat discreet breastfeeding. I put the drink on table, put Evie down in the booth and put the sushi on table. With my eyes on Evie to make sure she didn’t fall, I slid the reusable bags off the table and somehow I manage to pull the Coke along with it. The cup fell onto the floor and coke splattered EVERYWHERE! (and thankfully only missed my jeans by .0002 millimeters) I was so out of it however I didn’t even realize it was me who spilled the drink. My immediate thought was, “oh someone spilled their drink, that sucks” then I looked up and 15 people were staring at me. I look down at the floor and see 20 ounces of coke in a puddle with some ice at my feet. Confidence shattered, I consider putting the shawl over my head to hide.

Instead, I get up, grab Evie… and my purse…and my sushi…and my reusable bags…and my empty cup (which was shattered along with my confidence) to get more Coke and to alert a worker-bee to the absolute mess in the corner. I sit back down at a table near the spill and regroup. While feeding myself and Evie I notice that the tables are starting to fill and as they do more and more people see the empty table in the corner. They walk up to it and at the last minute see the Coke on the floor and turn around. One. Two. Three. Four. Five people try to sit at the table all turning around in disgust at the last minute. All the other tables are taken now. I stare at the floor. Don’t make eye contact. Maybe they won’t know it was me.

The spill aside our lunch goes like this (italics indicate thoughts since Evie can’t actually talk):

E: What’s that? (reaches for chop sticks)
Me:  These are chop sticks. (moves chop sticks out of reach)
E: Can I put them in my mouth? (reaches for chop sticks again…succeeds in getting chop sticks and starts to put them in her mouth)
Me: Oh no! You can’t play with these. They’re for eating. (takes chop sticks away)
E: Why not? (looks at me)
Me: You might hurt yourself with them.
E: What’s that? (reaches for my coke)
Me: Oh no! That’s Mommy’s drink. That’s not for Evie. (moves coke out of reach)
E: What’s that? (reaches for my tray of sushi)
Me: That’s Mommy’s lunch. Sushi. (slides out of reach)
E: Can I put it in my mouth? (reaches for sushi again)
Me: You can’t eat sushi yet. Sushi isn’t cooked, it might make you sick. (moves sushi away)
E: But, I want it. (grabs sushi tray even though I thought it was out of reach)
Me: You can try sushi someday but not right now. (takes tray away)
E: What’s that?…

After the sushi was gone and Evie was fed I picked up our things and what’s left of my ego and go to get a shopping cart. I’m busy affixing a balloon to the cart when I hear someone calling my name.

“Hi Joni!”

It was my brother’s best friend, Brad. I try to look poised, put together…like my outfit said I was. Brad, after all, had no idea that only minutes earlier I had been tramatized by an exploding coke. I exchange niceities with him and his co-worker who were stopping by for lunch all the while thinking,  I saw someone I knew! I sure am glad I was wearing make up! Score one for looking nice! *mental fistpump* Yeah!

At this point I think I have regained some control and begin my shopping…until Evie reminds me that I have not.

E: What’s that? (grabs the straw in my coke cup which is sitting in the cupholder of the cart)
Me: That’s Mommy’s drink. Please don’t touch it. (removes hand from straw)
E: Can I put it in my mouth? I see you doing it. (grabs straw again and puts the end in her mouth)
Me: No honey, you can’t have Coke. It’s not good for babies. (takes straw away while giggling at her)
E: But I really want it. (grabs for the whole cup this time)
Me: No, please leave Mommy’s Coke alone (I pick up the Coke and hold it while I push)
E: What’s that? (grabs a bag of coffee sitting on the shelf while I’m stopped. bag falls on floor)
Me: Oh please don’t grab the coffee. We don’t need coffee. (I pick up the bag and realize that she’s chosen a really nice locally roasted Puerto Rican medium roast. I put the coffee in the cart.)
E: Oh there’s your phone! I know what that is! (grabs phone from the little tray on the font of the cart. drops phone on the floor.)

I pick up the phone so now I’m holding the phone and the coke while pushing the cart with one hand and an elbow. Meanwhile the balloon that she is ignoring keeps hitting me in the head. I use my other hand to hold down the balloon. Now I’m pushing the cart with two elbows.

E: What’s that? (reaches for the lemons)…
…repeat for the next hour.

By the time we left the store I was exhausted and convinced that I left my brain somewhere in the cheese section…along with a pacifier…

At the beginning of December we went on a trip, our first famiy vacation to Virginia where Evie got to meet her Aunt, Uncle and cousins for the first time. After 5 days in Virginia we flew to New York City to visit some friends. We had a fantastic time hanging out and generally playing in this huge playground called NYC and the two days we were there came to an end way too quickly. The two weeks before we left I was fretting the flights…being stuck in a plane with Evie wasn’t just my problem it was the problem of the other 200 people on the plane. I had waking nightmares of her screaming bloody murder for hours on end and not being able to get up to bounce her because the “fasten seatbelt” sign was lit. Thankfully, she was an absolute trooper. Five flights and she didn’t make a peep. Not. A. Peep.

Our first Christmas in Houston meant our first Christmas in SIX years we didn’t have to pack up and travel. Wow! It felt strange, almost anticlamatic. Like, am I forgetting something? Aren’t I supposed to be doing something? Because we didn’t travel Christmas snuck up on me and whacked me in the head sometime Friday afternoon. Bam! I’m here! We went to my parents house on Christmas Eve and then had Christmas Day dinner at our house. Evie had a great first Christmas. She is just barely old enough to enjoy opening presents and it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Her look of concentration as she figured out how to unwrap presents was something I will never forget. She got a bunch of toys, some books and Santa brought her some bath toys. Yay bath toys! Thanks Santa!

Our new house feels so much more like our home now than it did just a month ago. We’ve celebrated a holiday here and have made some memories. More and more our house in Dallas seems like a glorified apartment and though it has been less than a year since we moved it seems so long ago, like it was a past life. Did we live in Dallas for six years or did I dream that? We’ve only lived in this house for six months but it really feels like it’s been much longer than that.

After a six week running break after the San Antonio half  marathon I have jumped back in. This time I have a somewhat more lofty goal…the Big D Marathon. No half marathon business this time. My last marathon attempt was thwarted by little Evie monster so this time maybe I won’t get pregnant halfway through training. One thing I have learned about myself through my weight loss adventures is that I must have a goal to stay motivated to run. No matter how good of shape I am in I just can’t run for the sake of running, I’m way too lazy. My butt-on-couch instinct is  very strong. I haven’t registered for it yet but I promise I’ll let you know when I do. I am in the second week of a 16 week training plan – running five days a week and cross training the other two. Every week I do two short runs, one mid distance run, one mid distance speed run and then one long run. This week the long run will be 9 miles. Next week 11.

That’s enough for one post. Besides, Evie is no longer playing quietly on the floor (she’s in my lap waiting to be entertained) and my coffee is gone.

The hay ride

Our tree!

We got to ride a hay ride, tromp around in the trees, drink hot chocolate and eat BBQ. Yes, it was twice the cost of a tree at Kroger BUT I think it was worth it. We got a fresher tree and we got to support a local business!

Before I got pregnant…

Wait. First, a tangent. I could have never anticipated how my pregnancy would divide my life, like a line in the sand – before pregnancy and after pregnancy.  Everything I say that happened to me prior to my pregnancy I now preface with the phrase “before I got pregnant”. It’s almost like I’m referring to a different person, I could easily be saying “my sister-in-law” or “my friend, Suzy”, which isn’t far from the truth. I find myself using that phrase often. I don’t like to think that the pre-pregnancy Joni is gone - just metamorphosized into something better.

…anyway, as I was saying. Before I got pregnant, back when I was fat, I had some Lucky Brand blue jeans that I absolutely loved. When it comes to clothes I love stuff from Target. It’s cheap, cute and as clothes they function quite well BUT if there’s one thing I don’t mind splurging a little on, it’s a nice pair of blue jeans. When I finished loosing weight and those size 12s no longer fit I told myself I would buy myself a new pair of Lucky’s. But since I was only skinny for a MONTH before I got pregnant, I never had the chance. As of today, I only have 5 pounds left of baby weight to loose and I’m back into all my old clothes, my old skinny clothes. Yesterday, we went to the outlet mall and I finally got to buy my Lucky Brand jeans…size 2. I was so excited that I bought three pair. Maybe I got a little carried away.

We immediately checked in to the hotel and went to pick up our race packets.

A little sidenote: Evie discovered the power of her voice on Friday. By this I mean she discovered how to scream (not cry) at the top of her lungs so loudly that it makes you suffer temporary hearing loss. She now does this at every possible opportunity. Sidenote over.

My parents are awesome and came with us to babysit during the race so after we picked up our packets we all went to dinner. Unfortunately, we spent the entire meal trying to get Evie to stop screaming. How do you teach a 6-month old baby that it’s not okay to yell in a restaurant?

“No honey, we don’t yell. It’s not considerate to the other people here.”

Uh no. Let me just go ahead and tell you that doesn’t work. Instead my mom, the saint, bounced, sang to and played with her so I could eat. Thank you, mom.

On the way back to the hotel we walked by the Alamo which is beautiful at night. My dad, being the very proud and loyal Texan he is was determined to have little Evie touch it. Apparently it’s a “federal offense” to have a 6-month old baby put one finger on the structure, we were sternly warned by a policeman who was hiding in the bushes. Uh huh. Poo-poo head. That’s what I think about that.

We woke up at 5:30 the next morning for the race. We dropped off the baby with my parents at 6 and by 6:30 we were at the start line.

For me, the race was great. My carb loading on Friday and Saturday was extremely successful and if you can call 13 miles easy, I think this race qualifies. I finished in exactly 2:10:00  which oddly enough is my EXACT same finishing time for the Virginia Beach half we ran a year ago, down to the second! I am still perplexed by how odd that coincidence is. I was mildly sore the remainder of the day Sunday and Monday but by Tuesday afternoon I was ache and pain free. Yay!

For Jason, the race was slightly different. After developing a massive leg cramp around mile 4 he limped through the remaining 9 miles. Though somehow he still managed to break the 2 hour mark, go honey! This small personal victory was overshadowed by something much, much more serious. As he was crossing the finish line Jason saw a fellow runner collapse and die. Not figuratively. Literally. It’s one thing to know that a runner dies during an endurance event but it’s something entirely different to actually see it happen. Right there. The man who had been running beside him for the last mile just keeled over and died. It has been haunting him for the last 3 days. It’s a shockingly real reminder of how dangerous endurance running is, especially in the heat. Not something to be taken lightly.

After the race, we reunited with my parents, showered and went to Tony Romas on the Riverwalk where we proceeded to eat a massive hamburger. A small reward for months of training and one really long run.

My parents left after the burger and our little family spent the remainder of the afternoon laying in bed sleeping off our exhausting morning. I had a massage that evening and the most wonderful husband ever babysat. Early Monday morning we hopped in the car and drove back home. This time, with a much more content child. Thank goodness.