Drugs are Bad, Umkay?

I don't recall smoking crack but it must have happened because a few weeks ago I signed up and even paid $100 to take part in a sprint triathlon. A sprint triathlon is not a full triathlon but it is indeed going to kick my ass. Any race that involves 300m of swimming, 10 miles of biking and 3 miles of running really does not deserve to have the term "sprint" placed in front of it.

Why would I be so stupid as to sign up for such an event when I could have just enjoyed the crack and gone about my business? Well, number one I have always wanted to do one. And, number two, I am getting older and fatter every second and apparently that's not going to change so really, it's now or never.

I have begun my official training which means I get to work my butt off and not eat donuts from now until October 17th. I'm no stranger to working my butt off, I did it for 10 years while swimming competitively, I did it in preparation for my wedding and I did it while I was in Canada because there really are just so many hours a day you can stare out your window and hope a moose will walk by. A diet without donuts, now that's going to be the hard part.

I have a confession to make, and don't hate me, but I have never "dieted". Never done Adkins, Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Jenny Craig or any other nonsensical exercise in self degradation. I just absolutely loathe any sort of program which involves creating for yourself an even greater obsession with food than when you started. Okay, I take that back... in college I was too poor to order desert, or an appetizer, or a drink other than water...or dinner most of the time so, instead I went home and had a few slices of not-really-lunch meat and went to sleep before I got hungry again...this proved to be an effective involuntary diet I suppose. That being said, my current regular diet is at least, decent. I eat lean cuts of meat and lots of fruits and veggies... I just balance it all out with plenty of cookies and ice cream.

But for this event, I've committed myself to a much more strict diet. No sweets, no adult beverages and no kolaches, pizza or barbecue until after I kick this race's ass. So, if you see me cheating, call me out. Remind me of what I have coming to me, of how hard it's going to be dragging that one extra donut across the finish line. I just think that if I'm going to do this thing, I might as well give it my all. See how good I can be and how fast I can finish because guess what....I read they're going to have donuts and pizza at the finish line.

Graduation Day

Since I get really bothered with those people that start the first post to their blog in months with the obvious, "Wow, Geeeze, I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted!"...I won't do that. Not at all, because it's obvious. You can see the dates and it's very plain, it's been several months, several busy months, since I've logged a post.

We are three weeks and a few days away from school starting and rather than recap a whole summer in one very long and boring post I'll start with this: Kindgerten Graduation. Our little girl, born on the 4th of July, 2004, is now a First Grader. Now, I'm not a sappy person. Ask anyone in my family, ask my husband, ask our beta fish and they will tell you, I'm not a sappy person and I don't cry easily. But two things have made me cry this summer as the mere thought of them come to the surfuce of my brain; one I will discuss in a future post and the other is the realization that Ryleigh is on her way in this world...*tears, sniff, sniff, tears*.

One day this summer she told that she knows more than I do. I was taken back by this observation as it took me until 6th grade to draw the conclusion that I knew more than my mother. Of course my mother agreed with me but to my daughter I asked "What's the sqare root of 16?" When she couldn't answer I told her to keep learning more stuff, she might catch up when I'm 80 and decide that the era of non-stop donut eating has entered my life.

She is a bright girl though and loves to sit around and write out math equations but really hates to read. She loves to be read to, just doesn't seem to have the patience it takes to tackle the whole sounding out of words thing. The thought of having a child that doesn't get the joy of reading is frightening to me. I love to read and always have. However, if she keeps it up with the math...and the Geograhpy...and the current events...and the science and all the other things that do highly interest her, she just might be able to make it in this world. And then maybe at some point, when she can learn to read the good stuff, you know, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men...Twilight, she will catch on to this reading thing and be just as much of a smart-ass dork as her mother.

Graduation Day:

Going to Sheboygan...Part 1

For some reason, or because Sara Z. made me think it would be a good idea last October, we decided it would be a great idea to do a 17 day driving trip around the United States....with the children. So we told our friends in Chicago, Sara and Kalman, that we wanted to come up for a visit. They told us to come on and even said we could bring little tornado #1 and little tornado #2! AND, in an attempt to be the coolest friends ever, they offered to take us up to their lake house in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on Michigan Lake. Then we asked my mother in law in Nashville if she would mind a visit from us and the grandbabies and she said "I would love to have the kids come visit...wait, where are you guys going?"..."We're going to stay with you too Pam"...and she said "Oh, yeah, that would be great, I will need someone to change Avery's diapers."

So a trip started to take shape and here is how it got planned out:

Night 1: Texarkana, TX
Night 2: Queen Wilhelmena State Park Lodge in Arkansas
Night 3: Memphis, TN
Night 4&5: Nashville, TN
Night 6: Lexington, Kentucky
Night 7: Indianapolis, Illinois
Night 8-12: Chicago/Sheboygan
Night 13: St. Louis, Missouri
Night 14 & 15: Arltington, TX


A trip like this takes lots of planning, for anyone that ever dares to be so bold. We decided early on that we couldn't afford to eat out every mean so we packed an ice chest and vowed to eat out of it for lunch every day that we possibly could and to do breakfast out of it too if the hotel didn't offer a free breakfast. So we packed our bags, packed our truck and hit the road. I'm going to try and break up this post into several parts because there is so much to tell and so much we want to remember. I'll post a link to the pics at the right though.

We drove to Texarkana stayed the first night night. On the way we swung through Lufkin where I got to see a parking terminal that was a project of mine back when we lived in Bryan. I left the job a few months before it was complete so it was really cool to see the final version. Our first visit to Texarkana was pretty much what expected. We stayed in a nice, new Hampton and enjoyed dinner at Olive Garden. Not much to do or see in Texarkana so we were up and away on day two.

On day two we drove from Texarkana to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas and searched for diamonds. When we arrived the weather was nice with a remnants of a recent rain. This is supposed to be prime diamond hunting condidtions as the diamonds are burried in a thick mud and you have to sift through the mud to find the diamonds. When it rains, it washes away the top layer of mud and is supposed to reveal new diamonds. The park tills the soil every now and then to aid in the process. There is nothing clean about searching for diamonds here, but it is the only place in the world where you can search for diamonds and keep what you find for the bargain price of the $8 admission fee. At first we attempted to walk across the field in our shoes. This didn't work so well because the mud just accumulates on your shoes until each foot weighs 20 lbs. This was especially hard on the girls. At this point we decided to go hard or go on down the road. We took the girls' shoes off and told them to just have fun in the mud. Then Jeramy and I filled a 5 gallon bucket with mud and headed to the water station to sift through our bounty. The pictures really say it all, the girls had a blast getting all muddy and dirty and Jeramy and I got to look at rocks and minerals. A magical day for everyone indeed. We didn't find any diamonds, only some quartz and mica. So after we decided it wasn't our lucky day we all got washed up at the water power blasting station and then went for a swim in a nice little water park that was in the State Park. After changing clothes we were off to our final destinatin for the day, Queen Wilhelmena State Park in Arkansas.

The lodge we stayed in was originally built in 1897 and was situated on top of a mountain. The girls got to do a little train ride around the top of the mountain. We had expected to be able to do some hiking at this park, but there had been some bears sighted close by so all trails were closed. We had a pretty decent southern style dinner which included a dessert buffet that would have put the ol' church potluck to shame. Amazing bunch of homemade, old fashioned desserts. The kids didn't even like any of it...but bring on the chess and buttermilk pie baby! The lodge was old, but very clean and we got a good night's sleep before setting out the next day towards Hot Springs, Arkansas.