Look what happened to my dad!

It took 15 years - but I finally got him where I want him.

It is a rainy, miserable day in Tillamook - made extra gloomy because it is Memorial Day weekend, and supposed to be one for playing outside. Chuck's in his pajamas on the couch with hot coffee, reading the paper and watching the Sunday Morning political talking heads on TV.
I scheduled a meeting with Jeff - our builder - today so that we can make sure we are happy with the house plan and customizations we are planning to base our design on prior to paying an architecht to make a sketch and draw up blueprints.
We had planned to drive down to Neskowin to meet Jeff since he is in the middle of building a house there. Chuck doesn't want to go. I told him he needed to come - so that any changes we were ones we were both happy with. He said, we already know what we are doing, "you cannot screw it up."
Chuck found the plan that we agreed on and we both have looked at a lot of plans since to make sure we didn't find something we liked better. I was still unsure about him not coming, I didn't want to add a bathroom or something and have him grouse about the expense later. He was very much inclined to stay in his jammies. In a moment of weakness and last ditched effort to get out of the 30 minute drive he said, "I'll agree to whatever you want."
I have been waiting for that statement since we got together in 1990!!! Finally he understands what this marriage is all about. Bliss!

I took a three hour nap today from 5 to 8 pm. It felt heavenly. Chuck thought I was down for the night, but I emerged eventually. Although I think getting up at 5 am every morning during the week contributes to my new found enjoyment of naps, I looked up the side effects of a medication I'm on and "somnolence" was listed. When I looked that up, I found it meant "prolonged drowsiness or sleepiness." Aha. Notice, however it is now 1:30 a.m. as I post this note and that somnolence seems to escape me.

I was waylaid on the way to work last Thursday... staying with the Spectster, and she came in the house and told me I had two flat tires.
I used my keen insight about automotive technology to determine that the 9 roofing nails in the left two tires was the problem:
The friendly AAA towman came to Connie's house and filled the tires with air, and told me he thought they might hold, since Les Schwab wasn't far away. "What do you mean might?" I said.
"Are you sure? Why don't you follow me there?" He was eager to move on, but agreed to go with me under the pressure of the pathetic look I gave him. We made it.
Late for a meeting I went into the store and asked the friendly tire technician if they had wireless access. He rolled his eyes - didn't even try to hide it. He also didn't seem to care that I needed to at least call into a meeting I was supposed to attend on retest strategy. So I missed the meeting, but enjoyed a healthy breakfast of tire store popcorn and am the proud owner of two new tires.
PS If you are in the market for roofing nails - albeit bent, and you'd have to run over to Les Schwab and retrieve them from the dead tires - I'm your girl.

young son shared a joke last night:

"What do you call someone else's cheese?"

"Nacho cheese"

Back in major training mode - to read about Danskin 06 check out my other blog.

Hippie Chick

Well what a hard fought medal I earned at the Hippie Chick Half Marathon.
The race is a repeated 7 mile loop around Champoeg Park. Beth and I were completely pumped up for the race day – it was beautiful – we were geared up and ready to go.
The first loop went well, we were beating our targeted walking pace of 16.5 minutes miles rather easily the whole first loop. (I'd like to walk a 15 minute mile and be able to do it for 10 miles eventually).
Something changed after the first loop though. I was overtaken by a wave a nausea. You know that feeling you get when you are dizzy, sick and your upper lip is sweating right before you need to hurl? that's how I felt. I kept having to stop and put my head down. I really wanted to just sit down. I was completely mortified at the thought of not finishing though and assumed I had been overtaken by some sort of wave of wussy-ness. By mile 10 I told Beth that dammit, I wish I would just throw up and get it over with – about 30 seconds before I did just that. Many times. and Splashed on the $90 running shoes.
Although I then felt better for the next mile or so – finishing the race was physically one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I felt awful. In my head (I basically wasn't speaking at this point, just trying to get through it) I kept telling myself, that I delivered two large children naturally that had to be harder, right? and I got thorugh it, right? but I didn't remember it feeling as awful as this. At least then I could rest between contractions. And sit down. (I'm sure the 7 years of time since I have been through that experience, and the beautiful outcome of that project has fuzzied the pain from my memory).
After crossing the finish line – I climbed into the hotel van waiting for us and couldn't say a word. I didn't even want to walk the 25 feet extra to pick up my medal – but Beth, the world's best training buddy got mine for me.
I waited until I was alone with Beth to start balling. Then I called my husband looking for sympathy and kudos for finishing and to express my bafflement at what had happened. This is when I learned my son had been up all night with the stomach flu and learned I was in fact sick. (I spent the rest of the day and most of the next in bed with stomach probs)
I'm proud of the medal, but looking at it and my race number still make me shudder. Beth and I are going to repeat the distance, hopefully without the puking, mid June, just to prove to myself I can do it without being debilitated.

Bad news for Debo and the poker purpose. I had to promise to put this winning grin up and that I would blog this ugliness, since I was such a show off when I beat him. The man has my money now. And I seemed to up the stakes by offering to make him a cheesecake. when will I learn?

Samantha wants to know how old by law you have to be to have babies?
I told her 30
She figured out I wasn't 30 when Charlie was born.

Remind me next time I have a baby to shop for cute things here.
And furnish the nursery here. How cute is this?














oh wait.

The TCCA (Tillamook County Creamory Association) has introduced happy face fries. When will the Brasserie Montmartre catch on to this thrilling culinary trend?

In case you need your norge cleaned. Or altered. You can go here (picture taken next door to a salon I frequent): 

Chuck asked me to explain why there was a dishrag taped to the window. Here's the perfectly logical explanation: I wanted to take pictures of my kids near a north facing window. I wanted to see if I could get that little window light spark thingy in their eyes. It always looks so cool. To do this I had to get them looking out the window. When they got tired of me pointing to the window and saying "Look Here!" Charlie thought it would be preferable to have something to look at. So, obviously he ripped a leaf off of our rubber tree and rubbed some of that weird white plant blood onto the window. When I yelled about destroying the plant and goobing the window, he went to fetch a towel to wipe off the window. Then, he thought the towel itself made a good eye-catcher. So he taped it up. Since the rest of the house is in total chaos, I saw no compelling reason to remove it.

Here's one of the eye spark shots I was after, I think I'm going to call it, "Iliana looking at a dishtowel with plant goob":

I have just finally had to pull myself away from our basement. I keep getting lost in time "watching" our laundry.

I woke up this morning trying to rally enthusiasm to drag all our dirty clothes to the Little Cheese Coin Op . Never made it. I did however manage to log onto consumer reports, do a little research and then get down to Roby's and buy a new Maytag Neptune Washer and Dryer set.

There is all these little controls, windows to watch the cleansing action. It is all good happy laundry fun. Chuck accused me of being giddy since I got to spend money – I think I just like nice things. When we moved out the old washer to install the new one, I bubbled, "Wait! I spy with my little eye, something dirty" and pranced over to vacuum and 409 the guk off the floor before putting the new washer there. I guess that was a little much. We have had our old set, which is really a good one and probably very fixable, for 15 years or so. For at least the past five or so I have been coveting a front loading washing machine and a more efficient dryer.

Just made reservations to stay in Newburg on May 13th - the night before the half-marathon. I will be waking up without my children or husband on Mother's day. Does this make sense? Guess so, I'm feeling proud of the high miles I have been clocking lately.