Race Day

So Saturday I ran my first road race. Let me share a couple of things that I learned and will hopefully take with me if I dare do it again:

1. Don't judge a runner by their shape or age. There were some curves, 7 and 80 year old's who kicked my trash. And on the flip side, I also passed a slightly younger, skinny mini with an I-pod strapped to her arm on the second half of the course.
   
2. MP3 strapped to arm does not = speedy runner.
3. People wearing those short mini running shorts and have extremely muscular legs = speedy runners.
   
4. You should probably try and run at least once within the month leading up to your race.
5. You should probably try and run the full distance of your race at least once in 5 years leading up to your race.
6. Getting stretched by a professional HURTS. (I should have payed more attention to what was going on on the mats - I thought they were giving massages).
   
7. Long Island clam chowder is tomato based and not cream based.
8. Power bars and power drinks make me want to power vomit. (Gatorade is fine though)
9. Trust your friends who suggest taking off your sweater before the race and live with the cold for a few minutes. You will warm up.
   
10. Pin your number to your t-shirt underneath and not your sweater if you decide not to listen to your friends.
    
11. Double knot your shoes. (I ran probably 1km with my shoe untied not wanting to stop)
12. Running and drinking is messy and almost pointless.
    
13. Littering your drink station cup on the ground feels awkward (I hate littering and strongly dislike people who litter - harsh I know).
14. I'm still stubborn and competitive and won't stop no matter what. (Marathon would be different).
    
15. Crossing a finish line with a better time than expected feels exhausting....but great!
    

Trying to get psyched before the race. Where's "Jock Rock" when you need it?

Best dressed award goes to the old man in the shiny 70's basketball uniform.
(pretty sure he beat me)

See #3. This guy finished the 4km in just over 12min.
He lapped me on a two lap course.

See #1

"I think I can! I think I can!"

Happy to finally take off my sweater and also fighting the urge to puke and faint.

One of the most random street names I've come across.
Saw it on the drive home and suddenly got the munchies.

Ticked Off / Tickled Pink

Welcome back to another Friday edition of "Ticked Off / Tickled Pink".

Ticked Off:
Dog poo on human shoe! Someone in our apartment complex has decided that their dog's enormo-poos (that are deposited right in front of our entry) are too essential to the circle of life to be picked-up once "released". What gets my goat is the fact that we've had some minor tracking of it in our apartment where poo zones are kept strictly to the toilet and diaper. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Henry trips and falls into a pile slightly hidden by leaves.

Tickled Pink:
This Saturday I will be running in my first road race. It's only 4km but considering my training has consisted of me running only about 5 times and the last time being over a month ago, it should still be challenging. I think the short distance and the promise of hot chocolate, clam chowder and bagels waiting for me at the finish line was what made me know that this was the race for me. Very wise of them to offer it after and not before.

Halloween Stunk!

A few photos of our stinky Halloween night...

Here's Henry with his cover shot pose before he put on the rest of his costume. Mark and I thought the girlie, tight black clothes were hilarious on him and let him roam the house for quite a while as we laughed at him. He looked like a tiny mime or young Luke Skywalker. As hilarious as it was, what was more funny was watching Mark try to teach Henry how to mime. Oh my! I wish I had that on video.

He's probably so happy because he just finished adding the "scent" part of his costume.

Looks almost real from behind. He had the waddle down packed.

"What happened to the lid?"
(which had just fell inside the pumpkin)

I wish I could say he was begging for candy. How perfect would that picture be? But no, he was facing the wrong way and was probably wanting me to pick him up to go outside so he could run free. This kid loves his independence and didn't really get what candy was this year - which I'm fine with.

And just for fun, I thought I'd add a photo from last year.
It's weird though looking back. After I took off the costume, he still continued to be a little monster.
And, now that I've taken off the skunk costume, he's still continues to be quite stinky.
Maybe next year I should make him be an angel...or a millionaire
....or maybe a millionaire angel.

The After Shot

Oh how the mighty have fallen! It's been probably two weeks or longer since I've watered Mark's Chia Homer and you can hardly tell right? Man these plants are sturdy...like cacti in the dessert. No, of course I'm kidding, but now I realize if Mark starts begging me to get a dog or a gerbil and says he'll be the one to take care of it, I need to say a big fat NO! because this is what happens to things that end up in my care that I don't really care about. Death - slow, ugly and probably painful. You can tell by just looking at his chest hairs that appeared to be hanging on for dear life.

It didn't take that long before poor Homer started reminding me of the guy on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade who at the end drank out of the wrong goblet and within seconds withered away to dust. Tragic thought I know. So long Homer! I'm sure none of us will miss you.

Chia Update

Inquiring minds (wait, did I pluralize that last word? ...I meant "mind") have been asking "How's Chia Homer doing?". Well inquirer (aka Melissa), see for yourself. This photo is taken from about a week and a half ago when Homer was alive and well. Long, luscious green locks everywhere the eye can see, chest hair thicker than my husbands, a nice wind blown look, and full of nothing but water and confidence. It looks like bedhead, but you know he styled it that way. He looks happier and healthier than the day he married Marge.


Ingrain this photo into your minds (oops! I keep pluralizing that word). This is how I want you all to remember Chia Homer by.

Tomorrow you will see what a week and a half of neglect can do to even the best of Chia's.

24 Hours of Pure Luck (or Pure Blessings)

Since moving out of our furnished apartment, our home was in desperate need of a few basic yet potentially expensive items to be complete and make it organized and functional. These included: a bookcase (see a couple posts down to see the end of that story), a kitchen table, and a dresser.

After getting that bookcase for free, I was determined not to have to spend very much, if any, for these other items and continued scouring craigslist for the perfect fit.

My run of luck all started one Sunday night when Mark and I were returning home from a friend's house. It was dark outside but I spotted on the side of the road a kids table and two chairs. I wasn't really in the market for this but they appeared to be pretty intact (driving at 40 miles/hour) so I asked - or probably more like ordered - Mark to stop the car so I could take a look. With neighbor's eyes watching, we threw the 3 piece set in the back of our vehicle and drove off slightly embarrassed and with no real plan on what we were going to do with them. I just couldn't pass them up.

(This is a picture of the chairs from yesterday. I was just about to start sanding. You can't really see it, but they have some bubbling on them from water damage.)

Then later that night I came home, slipped into something a little more comfortable, and like a reflex, began my ritual of searching craigslist. The "free" section is where I always start looking first, then the furniture section (pictured items only and everything <$100). Almost by chance, I found this table and immediately contacted the person and set up a time for the next day to pick it up. With over a month of searching, I had never seen a table like this one. PRO of living near NYC - you have so many options. CON - nothing is close by. The seller lived 1 hour away (without traffic). But it was only $50 and came with 3 leaves.

(I really LOVE this table. Chairs are still to be found.)

My luck didn't stop there. The next morning I went grocery shopping and decided to take a different route home...mainly for the scenery but partially in hopes that seeing new curb-sides would up my chances of finding new and free gems to fix up. And it did. I ended up picking up another item that wasn't on my wish list but was too unique and cute to let it get chucked. I can't tell whether it's for a human or animal. I'm hoping human.



Later that afternoon, I had cleaned out the car and was on route to go and get my new table. Waiting at a stop light not even two minutes from my house, I see out of the corner of my eye the bottom legs of what I thought could have been a dresser (up-side-down). I questioned myself thinking it was probably the top of a fence. But my gut said GO!, so I decided to turn and lo and behold it was EXACTLY what I was looking for in a dresser. One that had good bones and would look sweet after some sanding and a coat of paint.



After lifting that sucker into the car, I called Mark and told him I was on my way home. He was very confused as I wasn't expected home for a few hours. I told him "I found a dresser!" and he said "You're CRAZY!" But what could he do right? We quickly unloaded the dresser and shoved it into the last available space in the apartment and then off I went to pick up my new table.

So let's review. In a matter of 24 hours I had found, a kid's table and chairs, a kitchen table, a fun little chair that could really be for a pampered cat (who knows), and a dresser. All for a total of $50. Then if we add my bookshelf and this antique treasure chest I found at a garage sale a couple weeks ago, my total then goes up to $80 for all of these things (maybe $100 with gas). Amazing!



I understand that this sum total will rise slightly as I'll be spending many hours and some additional funds for paint and what not, but I do feel really blessed that I have - with a lot of searching and patience - found everything that I felt our family needed to keep our house happy organized and running smoothly.

Like I said, Mark thinks I'm completely of my rocker, but I think deep down he's grateful for the money we've saved. We have since agreed that we don't have any more room for anything else and I need to curb this habit of mine. I told him, he needs to be grateful it wasn't strayed animals I was bringing home.

Now I just need to find the time to work on all these projects.

Congratulations! It's A....

Saturday morning, Mark woke up at 2:30am and left our bedroom to what I thought was just semi-routine rendezvous with his math textbook in the bathroom. He didn't return for a good 20 minutes (which isn't abnormal for a Hughes) but I decided to leave my warm cocoon of blankets to see what was going on. To my unfortunate surprise, I found him flat on his back on the floor of the living room. He's never been one for yoga so I knew something was "going down" ( whoops, was that foreshadowing??). He said he was having really intense pain in his lower back on the left hand side. Mark and I have seen probably just enough E.R. or House episodes to know that that sounds like a kidney problem. However, not knowing for sure that it wasn't just extremely bad gas or a slipped disc, he spent the next two hours rolling on the floor, almost puking, then puking, talking to a nurse on the phone, applying heat, getting massaged, walking and probably praying...a lot. He had a few moments during that time where his coloring came back and I noticed he could sit still for a while, but it seemed those moments were short lived. When the next wave of pain erupted, we decided to go into the E.R. (which was empty!!) and get him first of all, some pain relief, and second of all, some answers. He was admitted immediately, got doped up on morphine and went up within minutes to have a CT scan. (why is everywhere up in a hospital?)

The results came soon after. We have TWINS! Yep, Mark was showing not one but two kidney stones. The doctor explained that he was at 3rd base with the first and smaller one, but the second and bigger one was still in the kidneys and there was no saying if/when it will pass.

They prescribed him a very generous amount of some of the best painkillers and sent us home to await the arrival of our newest addition. Fortunately, after leaving the hospital Mark didn't ever have another wave of pain and thinks he hit "home base" while still under the influence at the hospital. Also fortunately, we now have a full, untouched bottle of percocet that I hear goes for about $20/pill on the street. So I'll be starting the bids at $400 for the whole bottle (which is a deal for you my readers of course). Just leave your mailing address in the comment section and I'll courier it to the highest bidder. Look for "Kim's Homemade Raspberry Jam 2009" on the label. Oh and make sure you add shipping. Thanks.

The best part of the experience - which of course wasn't any part while he was in pain - was when I came home from picking up the prescription and Mark said he found a great website on kidney stones. Clearly it was the website that described the pain as "worse than childbirth, a gunshot wound and any surgery". For the rest of the day he was talking about his "gunshot wound" he'd just endured.

On my facebook status I asked what our stone baby should be named and here are some of the suggestions:

BaROCK Obama
Stone Phillips
Cephas
Peter
Rocco
Nefertiti, Rena, Rollie, Rocky, Pebbles & Scrapey-all-the-way-downey-ouch!

Sven
Hercules

Dwayne "the rock" Hughes (I came up with that one).