Dogs and chickens

I took the dog out for a walk yesterday. It was a pleasant sunny Saturday. Aside from half of the city moving out on account of the college semester begin over and it being the end of the month, it was a peaceful stroll. I wandered my way up to one of my favorite streets in Burlington, Prospect Street. I love this street because of the big old Victorian houses. It has a very suburban feel to it while still being within walking distance of downtown. It is so much quieter than my own street. I often dream of being wealthy enough to move up there.

I strolled along enjoying the chirping birds. Along the way I was greeted by my own neighbors who were passing in their car. It was all very quaint and serene and felt very homey. Suddenly the chirping was interrupted by three dogs to my right hitting the fence separating them from Cabbie (my dog). They snarled and barked and created such a frenzy it made me wonder if the fence would hold. I looked toward the house to see if anyone would come out to control them. No one did. I notice the yard was bare of grass, and holes, where the dogs amused themselves by digging, were every where. It resembled a mine field.

The house stood on a corner lot. So I hurried Cabbie (now rather dazed himself) around the corner. I was grateful that the dogs section of the yard was closed off from the other side. I was pondering what the purpose of the small house like structure was in this new section of the yard. Since it was not in a place where the dogs had access. Suddenly from the other side of the fence about three chicken started squawking and flying around. One even flew over the fence to cluck and strut around the driveway. I should mention here. I don't do chickens. I love a good omelet as much as the next person. But the chickens themselves. No thank you. My daughters love for me to take them to Shelburne Farm. There the kids can collect eggs from the chicken coop and hold the chickens. And I dutifully take them breathing deeply the whole time Chloe lugs each chicken around. Ew ick. Yuck.

Needless to say I found myself dragging the dog down the street to escape. From this I feel it is obvious to point out the grass is not always greener. Here I have always admired this area for its peace and serenity. And the whole time they have been dealing with crazy dogs and chickens. It strikes me that these are the people for whom city ordinances are written.

I will go back to my own little street with the homeless people pushing bottle carts down to the redemption center. They don't move as fast as the chickens. Those chickens- I mean they were freaky.

Saturday hair cuts

I took the girls in to get hair cuts this morning. Here is what resulted. Chloe wanted hers short. Alexa, just a trim.

Key Bank Marathon

I completed my 6th marathon on Sunday. It was my third Key Bank. It is run (for those who don't know) through Burlington. It is a beautiful course and a great spectator race. My mom and sister Cherie, along with my niece Annabel came to cheer me on. It has become a bit of a tradition for our family now. As Cherie said it is what she does on Memorial Day, comes to Burlington, watches me suffer, and we all bar-b-cue. This year was bit different, my sister Andrea couldn't make the trip (although I really tried to guilt her in to it). Phoenix is bit too far away to make a trip for a long weekend. And my house is in the midst of being painted, so I have no deck furniture out yet- thus no cook out his year.

The race was a tough one. It was sprinkling at the start. I hoped that would just be all it was going to do as the forecasts I had been reading mentioned nothing of rain. I was actually more concerned with heat as it looked to get up to 74. It ending up being a steady rain for most of the first half of the race. My girls (Chloe and Alexa) were with my mom, Cherie, and Annabel to watch, but it soon became to miserable for them to stay. Luckily my house is located within easy walking distance on the downtown viewing sections. They returned home (although I didn't know that for some time). I was soaking wet and, occasionally as a wind gust hit, cold. Wet clothes and running don't mix. To be quite blunt, you chafe. Badly. In very sensitive places. Even still, the pace was not bad for me. I was hoping for a 3:45 (Boston qualification). At the half way point I was still on that pace, about a 1:52. At mile 16 where my friend Jason handed me my water, I asked him to call Cherie. I hadn't seen her, mom, and the kids for awhile and was concerned that the rain had been too much. I wanted to make sure that some how I got dry clothes at the finish. At that point it was till cloudy and although the rain had subsided the wind was sending chills through me causing me to worry. Jason biked to catch me again and assured me that the kids were home, but Cherie would be at the finish with dry stuff.

The next 10 miles were nothing sort of my own person head game. My body began to protest the amount of Gatorade/ GU (energy gel) that I had ingested (remember I planned for potentially hot running). This is not an uncommon thing for distance runners to suffer. The glucose sugars that fuel you can also real havoc on your digestive system. Preventative measures are used, but this time it didn't work. Needless to say over those miles I made a number of deals with my body. The last 3 or 4 miles saw the sun come out and temperatures began to very quickly feel extremely humid. I finished in 4:00. I have finished some faster and some slower. That is right in the middle of my previous times.

I have, however, never finished a race and felt as badly as I did for this one. When the medical support asked if I was alright. I honestly had to think about whether or not I really was. I made it through the chute to Cherie and used her as my human crutch. I remember thinking that I was very close to passing out. I think Cherie knew it too because she started looking around saying Jason said he would be here too. She called him and I sat on the ground in line for the port-a-potties inching forward and praying that my body would return to normal health. I was swearing that I would not do another one.

I don't know if I will or not. Marathons are like child birth. You always say never again in the middle of the suffering, but once it starts to fade you think well what if this time I...

I know one of the things that I love about this distance is that it takes everything you have. It is the ultimate test. The ultimate challenge. I don't know whether I should be thinking why did I do that to myself? or look what I could push through? I do know that in the end when I walked in my door and out into my (now sunny) backyard. My girls yelled, "Mommy! will you come push us on the swings?" I do believe the distance is a bit lost on them.

I am extremely grateful: to Jason for biking all over the city in the rain to hand me waters, to my mom for watching three kids under the ago of 6 all alone, to Cherie for driving my car down to the finish to give me dry clothes and take me home, to Jason for sitting with me and walking me to the car Cherie was bringing (not sure he will ever know how ill and weak I really was), and to mom and Cherie for making veggie soup and grilled cheese for me while I lay on the couch. As lonely as a marathon is to run- you can not do it without a lot of support to get you to the finish line. It is a great reminder of who will help you out when you ask.




This picture was taken of me by Jason at mile 8. It had been raining steadily for 7 miles. I was running up to get a water and I am in the middle of saying, "This sucks."

My cake decorators

An interesting thing about being a single mom is your birthday. Now really I have no desire to make a big deal about my birthday. My girls however are old enough and smart enough to realize I have a birthday. So it has become a small tradition for me to let them decorate my birthday cake. Which means, of course, that I have to bake my own cake. I will admit the first time I did that it had a rather... shall we say...pathetic air to it? At any rate this is the third year that I have done it so it gets less pathetic each time you do it, or at least that is what I keep telling myself. So, yesterday I let my cake decorators get to work. My birthday was actually Friday, but they were off with their dad for the weekend visiting Grammie so this was the best we could do. What follows is my cake. They decided I needed pink and purple icing and a cat. I did assist with the cat drawing and some lettering, but the rest is all them. Please note the candles too. There are 24 because that is what comes in the pack and that let off enough heat and smoke. Can you imagine what they would have done with 37?

Windy, rain, and fresh paint

I like to think that I am a fairly observant person. I notice things. So I felt a little out of it when I stood on the back deck this afternoon chatting with my neighbor Marty and looked at my shed. That is odd I said, it looks like that tree branch is right on top of the shed. Now to my credit it was rather windy and rainy last night. I would like to think that I would notice something like this a little earlier than 1:30 in the afternoon. I did not however. So I put a call in to a tree service and hopefully they will remove the item in question. Even more hopefully is that the shed did not suffer any damage other than the indignity of having a branch laying on it.

I was busy at work late into the night last night painting my living room. I completed a chunk of it. I am changing it from green to blue. I am about half done. I was getting too tired to continue. The girls will be home soon so it will, unfortunately, stay like this for a couple more weeks until I get the time to finish. It isn't really a job I can do with the girls here as small children and wet paint do not mix. I already warned my sister who is arriving on Friday to be here for my race that the living room is an interesting color combination. She seemed unfazed.

The early empty nest

Divorce is one of those wacky things that no one plans for, but lots of people have it happen to them. If you flashed my life back three years ago I never would have pictured that this is where I would be. The are things that I am eternally grateful for about no longer being in my marriage. However to write them here would serve no purpose other than taking shots at my ex-husband. And to be quite honest I am as much to blame for two completely different people ending up in a marriage that they should not have been in as he is. But I turn 37 today and the list of things that I have learned about myself has grown quite long. There is comfort in that.

To be divorced and raise children is a journey that no book can prepare you for. It means you have chunks of your children's lives that you don't get to experience. It is what I picture people feeling when their children go off to college and they no longer have a clear picture of what they are doing or where they are. Some nights you soak in the silence and some nights it hurts too much to look at their empty beds.

I don't know how other people deal with the pain of not being able to re tuck in some one's blankets and kiss them on the forehead. But for me, whenever anyone wants to know, "How do you train for a marathon?" That's how. Sometimes when you run far enough, you can sleep at night.

Cookie crazy

I volunteered to bake cookies for the school PTO bake sale tonight. It seemed like a good idea weeks ago when I check off the paper and sent it in. Tonight I assure you the last thing I feel like doing is baking cookies. Although I have taste tested a few- you know just to make sure they are safe. Today was one of those days at work where there are certain kids names you have said over and over again. To make it worse we had an event where parents came in to see the kids projects which means a lot of smiles, hand shakes, and small talk.

Small talk always makes my head spin. Sometimes I get a sort of out of body experience with small talk. Like I hear myself saying things and I think what the hell are you saying? Stop talking. But no I just keep rambling on. I find the entire thing exhausting. So I dropped Alexa off with her sister to have dinner with her dad and really wanted to come home and nap.

Luckily I am done training for the Key Bank marathon over (Memorial Day weekend) so I guilt free ducked out of a run in the rain and 35 mile per hour wind gusts. Cut exercise down to walking the dog, but I still must bake the cookies. Ah the cookies.

The never ending cost of home ownership

Owning an old house is always an investment. It becomes particularly cumbersome when one has no real skills to fix things. I always feel at the mercy of repair men (OK they are always men) and carpenters. I hate feeling like an idiot, but lets be real other than putting in clothes, detergent, and turning a knob. I have no idea how a washing machine works. So the fact that I sunk a chunk of money into a washing machine only to have it permanently die a week later was just about par for the course.

So needless to say I am more than a little stressed with this latest venture. My house is in desperate need of a paint job. The paint (due to the age of the house, 1894) is assumed to be lead based (at some level) and needs to be removed by a professional. To add to it there are sections on the existing siding which are rotten and in need of repair. The stress for me is that I have spoken with painters and contractors. I have received advise and prices. So now it is decision time. But how can I be sure that this is not going to be another washing machine.

I wish there was some way to know if some one was being completely honest with you. I mean I know get different quotes and talk to lots of people. But sometimes that really isn't realistic. I mean I am a teacher. I can't spend hours a day calling people and I can't meet you at my house on my lunch break to show them the work. It is crazy. I have had people ask me if they could meet me at 11:00 AM on a Tuesday. It has left me wondering who can meet at 11:00 AM on a Tuesday?