one up me

so eric always has to one up me. when i crashed on my bike at the bear tracks and beez wax mtn bike race a long time ago and the end of my handle bars rammed into my sternum to the point where i couldn't breathe, i called eric and he told me how he crashed up at the test of metal and tore off his leg.
when i swallowed a fish bone and had to go to the ER and i had to be totally put under to have it taken out, eric put some rusty metal chunks in his eye ball and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night to have them taken out.
after having sirus when we were still in the hospital, even though i was the one with the swollen yoohoo and guts coming out everywhere and having my motherly parts chewed on nonstop, eric was the one who was more uncomfortable because the weird chair they had in the room for the dad was vinyl and he kept sticking to it because he tried sleeping on it in just his boxers (which i couldn't understand at all)
when i was so excited about finishing my first triathlon eric came home from the trail run race only to have come in 10th overall and 5th in his age group.
when i finished 3rd in my age group at my next triathlon, eric went and did his first triathlon a week or so later and won the whole thing. he came in 1st overall. oh the frustration of always being one upped.
but here are some photos from the most recent triathlon. i love the one of me crossing the finish line with the double chin and belly rolls. i will always be able to one up eric at looking bad. the goal for my next race - do better on the swim and look less horrid in my running photos. eric says it looks like i am using my head to slow myself down - leaning back to come to a stop. he might be right. why is my shirt flying up like that though?

people i want to hang out with

Barney from How I Met Your Mother
House from House
Wilson from House
Willie Wonka - the Johnny Depp one
Captain Jack Sparrow - the Johnny Depp one
Johnny Depp, but WW and CJS need to be there, too, as their own people
Ed Deline from Las Vegas
- I would actually like to work at the Montecito with all those people except for Mary because she is gross
Will Farrell as himeself and probably as Buddy, too

i hope my gut instinct is wrong this time

so, i had some eggs for lunch today and i have a feeling that maybe they were old and bad. they tasted fine so lets keep our fingers crossed.

i also got a free treadmill and sold a bunch of crap!

when i am good, i am so good

lets see. i went to california last week. it was so warm and sunny that i almost started to cry when i first stepped out of my hotel. i am so sun deprived it is rediculous. i went swimming at the club next to the hotel on wednesday evening. pool swimming is so nice. the water is clear, there isn't any poo on the bottom, but i have noticed the occasional ball of hair that floats by which is gross but not quite grosser then gross. wednesday night i had asparagus, snow peas and cheesecake for dinner. can't beat that.
thursday morning i went to the club next to the hotel and ran on the treadmill. treadmill running is now one of my favorite things. ok, that is pushing it, but it is fun because I can watch my progress some.
no comment about being in the office. i will do that some other time but it was good to see everyone.
we all went out to dinner and i got relatively hammered. i haven't done that in a long time. i even did a shot which i really haven't done in a really long time.
i had to get up at 530 to get to the airport to catch my flight. i felt a little dizzy but not bad. once i got home though i realized that felt dizzy simply because i was still drunk and once i got home the hangover was taking over. splitting headache and just all around not feeling good plus i was exhausted. seamus was so cute though because she told me over and over again that she missed me. that made my day! mom stopped by late that evening because eric was going to take her to the airport to pick up rick and his girlfriend. i passed out.
on saturday, i woke up at 530 again to head out to triathlon #2. I was no longer drunk or hung over but i dind't want to do the race. like really really didn't want to do it. i was totally freaked out about the swim since the last one was so horrible. i kept telling charity that i didn't think i was going to do it and i was trying to find some way to bail on it. next think ya know, its 10 minutes to start time, i am in my wetsuit and at the start. the guy running it was so awesome in that he asked who wasn't a very good swimmer and then suggested to all those who raised their hands to move to the back and to just let the others head out a little bit before going out. this helped so much! and combined that with that the water was so much more calm then lake washington has been i actually had fun on the swim! only once did i start to think about the possiblity of their being horrible things on the bottom and that was only a very quick thought. i came out of the swim and was able to actually prance my way up onto the beach and run to the transition area - something i was not able to do last time. i jumped on my bike and was on my way. the bike ride was fun, it was a two lap course and i was only caught by two of the guys who had started 5 minutes ahead of my field. eric installed a computer for me so i was able to keep track of time and speed and all of that. then it was off on the run. i started out slooooow. like - was i really running? but then after probably 10 minutes i started to pick it up. since i was going so slow i had decided that the 3 miles would likely take me over 30 minutes and i told myself that any time over 30 i would go as fast as i possibly could. i wound up rounding the corner and heading toward the finish only to see eric, seamus and sirus by the fence with seamus jumping up and down yelling "run mommy run" and i was totally inspired. she is so amazing and to see her so excited to see me running like that made me so happy! i picked up the pace and finished! I finished the run in 26 minutes which was amazing to me! i was so happy to see seamus and eric and sirus and i felt so good. hooray! to top it off, i came in 3rd in my age group and they announced my name and gave me a little trophy which i now have sitting on my desk at work. I think now that maybe i will take it home and give it to seamus.
after the race we came home, eric went for a bike ride and run, the kids took a nap, i layed on the deck and then took a nap. when eric came home he and seamus cleaned out seamus's pool and even though the water was so cold and the air was kind of cold too, seamus splashed around in there.
sunday we went for a short family jog and then did some shopping. then everyone came over for a BBQ - christie and jon, mom and rick and his gf. seamus wanted her "wet suit" on so she could go in the pool, so even though we were all in sweatshirts there she was splashing around having a great time. it was so fun to hang out with everyone!

they are GONE

we went swimming in lake washington yesterday after work. it was eric, charity, lindsey and me. it was kind of cold but much better then last time. it was pretty wavey, too, but with all of us there it was pretty fun. i didn't panic at all and we swam in deeper water this time and it was ok. we talked to some guy who was also out there. it was funny because he was foreign but was telling us the distances in yards and we were trying to convert them to meters. he asked what we were training for and i said the 5 mile lake triathlon and he thought i said the 5 mile leg of a triathlon. he was all impressed with us for about 1/2 a second and the we got it all figured it out. i hope we can all go out again sometime soon!
so after the swim we went home, played with the kids some, put them to bed, watched some reality show team fear factor which was actually pretty entertaining and then i took a shower. this is when i noticed that my boobs were totally gone. where did they go? they were GONE. i showed them to eric, much to his delight, and he said they were still there but they are not even close to being there the way they have been in recent months. luckily this morning, i woke up and at least my right one deicded to come back. i don't know how i feel about all of that.
the other issue i am having right now is my mustache. people keep telling me it is all in my head and i keep saying, no its right there on my face. its not a hair mustache but more a skin discoloration mustache. they talk of the mask of pregnancy which can cause some stuff like that, but ya know, i am so not pregnant right now and i didn't have it when i was pregnant. dude, it is so not cool. i am wondering if the small amount of sun that i have been exposed to could be making it stick out?
i am headed to LA here in about 5 minutes. ok, so i am headed to the airport so i can go to LA in about 5 minutes. i come back on friday. my brother is coming for a visit on friday! horray! but i will be arricing at the airport about 12 hours before he does.

that was my pitty party, but here are the photos

i tried to email myself

27 megs worth of photos but it didn't work. it was full of giant photos that i wanted to post here. i will try again tonight or tomorrow or somehow i will get them posted.
i can't remember friday night other then that eric went and got us a cheesecake. ugh he is intsistent on sabotaging all of my weight loss efforts.
on saturday jenifer was in town from colorado (formerly of CA, formerly of Seattle) and some of the girls met up for brunch at the hi-life. it was damn tasty. eric went and ran the cougar mountain trail run. it was the 2nd race in the series and was 7.5 miles. eric came in 10th overall and 5th in his age group. he had only run 7.6 miles once before and that was on wednesday so it was pretty impressive. we are now seriously considering bagging the xterra on july 9th all together and doing the 10 miler that is july 8th. we will have to see for sure but it is pretty impressive and he had a lot of fun.
saturday afternoon lindsey, mo and amelia come for a visit. seamus wasn't so sure about having another baby in the house but amelia and sirus seemed very interested in each other. amelia is so cute with big hazel eyes! so fun and it was great to see mo and lindsey as always!
sunday morning i woke up in a big old funk and cried and cried about how i am worthless and incompetant, and the best i will ever be at anything is bad to mediocre. eric tried to cheer me up by telling me how i do such a good job keeping the house all together and everything and i had to ask him when the last time anyone ever stopped by to tell me how i did such a great job on that last load of laundry. i am old and flabby, i can't lose the last 5 pounds, i don't make enough money, i have no real job skills and all in all i just suck.
to that, eric told me to get out of bed, we loaded up the kids and we went for a jog. we ran to greenlake and around the lake for a total of 6 miles then we stopped at the park and let seamus play for a while. it was fun and i felt better but i am still feeling pretty damn inadequate as a mother, a wife, an employee and person in general. i hate being so damn mediocre.

genius child

here i am getting out of the water at the triathlon. now do you beleive me that the swim was terrible? at least i am still ahead of that guy that started 3 minutes after me! charity and i went swimming in lake washington last night and it actually went pretty well. it was very cold at first but then it got better. i got over some of the things that were causing me issues. i realized that part of why i didn't want to put my face in the water was because i just didn't really want to see what was in there. we swam in some really shallow water so i do wonder what will happen with i get to a part where i can't see the bottom. the water was pretty choppy so i decided it simulated a race quite well. charity and i did keep crashing into each other which was pretty funny - we think her left arm is stronger and my right arm is stronger but we figured it out eventually. i was totally dizzy when i got out of the water and kept falling over when i was taking off the wetsuit. i also found out that my car has an alarm and i had no idea how to turn it off. cool but not cool at the same time since i was standing there on the side of a busy street in a dripping wet bathing suit with the horn of my car going crazy.





so here i am during the run. this is the one i was talking about where i was trying to not have a double chin. no double chin! but apparently while concentrating so hard on that i totally spaced on what to do with my arms. what is going on there?? pretty funny if you ask me. also, i was wearing the cliff bar jersey that eric wore when he and his team of 3 other guys won the 24 hour national championships a few years back. maybe that is why I was so fast? my knee doesn't really hurt any more so i probably don't need the brace but i keep it on there just in case.








seamus is a genius! check out this drawing she did! it pretty funny because all of those mouth lines are actually mouth parts. if you ask her she will tell you, mouth, teeth and more teeth. she is amazing. i watched her make another drawing and she says all the parts as she draws them. later she went back and colored a bit more on it and i asked her what the new thing was - "another nose" is what she told me. of course! what was i thinking? one day she was drawing circles and when i asked what she drew she looked at me like i was a total idiot for not knowing it was a circle and said matter of factly what it was. sometimes she draws ovals though.
she told me this morning that she had the hiccups. apparently she told eric several times yesterday that she farted. she told me that there was a pencil stuck in the drawer. she is talking in total sentences now. it is amazing. for some reason though she sleeps with 4 blankets in her bed. 4. that is a lot of blankets especially since she has about 2792375 stuffed animals, 45235235 books, a mirror and who knows what else in there with her. her bed is very small. what will she do when she gets a normal sized bed someday? sirus is on his way. he is starting to be very mischevious. he gets really pissed off if we put up the baby gates. if we don't have the gate up to the kitchen he will slowly make his way over there, go into the kitchen and kind of head towards you until he has determined that you might not be paying attention then he quickly turns and make a run for the cat food. if he is downstairs and sees that the gate to our bedroom is not up he makes a b-line right for it. yesterday eric even caught him going UP the stairs. he was all the way on the first step and trying to make it onto the second. that is no good. seamus is going to be so mad when we gate off the stairs and she doesn't have as much freedom any longer!

try tri

eric says that the only reason people do triathlons is that they aren't very good in any sport so that do one that consisits of muiltiples. he says this in jest, for the most part.
i did my first triathlon today and it kicked my arse. it was fun but maybe i should have listened a little more to some of the advice i had been given about the swim. my friend charity did it too. this was her 11th triathlon so she helped keep me under control before the race.
the wetsuit was great. it kept me warm and it helped keep my arse up. too back i had such a terrible swim. i made it to the first marker in crawl when i realized i was pushing too hard and needed to back off so i switched to breast stroke. big mistake. my crawl technique was terrible - for some reason i wouldn't put my face in the water. was it because i was afriad of the goose terd? was it because i was afriad i wouldn't be able to tell where i was going? whatever it was, it totally contributed to me getting too tired too soon. breast stroke was no better in that i still couldn't put my face in the water. this was terrible. i rounded the second marker and thank goodness i was as slow was i was because the front group of women totally missed the 3rd marker and headed straight for the 4th. they all had to swim back up and around. by the time i got to the 3rd maker the 35-40 men started mixing in. this did not help my situation because they started grabbing at my legs and splashing me in the face. on no! my face was getting wet!! what the hell? i finally made it to the shore and was totally spent. what a mess. the beach was totally rocky and i had no idea i had such delicate feet! once i made it to the grass i was able to sort of start running. sort of.
i made it to the transition area and remembered to take my time with the wetsuit. it came off fine. i dried my feet, put on my socks and shoes and my jersey, helmet, gloves and sunglasses and headed out. once on the bike i had so much fun! the ride was a blast! i was crusing along. i don't know how fast i was going or what what going on, but i was having fun. i had ridden this route before a long time ago and passed through the intersection that i totally plowed over this guy on my old mtn bike team. no one had gotten hurt so i had a little chuckle. i passed people on the hills and then some of the would pass me on the down hills. it was so fun. until the last two miles or so when my foot started cramping. i haven't ever had that happen on the bike. it has cramped during the swim, and it cramps during most swims, but i have never had it happen while on the bike. so i lost time there in an effort to constantly stretch it out to aviod major distaster.
once i was off the bike, running into transition the foot was fine. i changed my shoes, put on my knee brace and headed back out for the run. i had been told that my legs would feel like bricks and i never did any of the brick work outs because i had a three week taper which consisted of not exercising, but i think my foot issue and the fact that my run was starting out so mellow, my legs felt fine. most of the run was on a grassy trail which was a lot of fun. when we did hit the pavement it was so awesome to feel how easy it felt. i had told myself at the begining of the run that i would run the first 20 minutes and then re-access the situation. after 20 minutes i was feeling good so i think i even managed to pick up the pace a little, but that might just be me thinking that. i was slow but i ran the whole thing! i finshed the whole triathlon!! i am so proud of myself and i am looking forward to my next one. ok, actually, no im not because the next one has a swim that is twice as long, in salt water. i have some work to do. i will now take the advice that was given to me and i will, i have to, go for some open water swims in a non-stress environment. i have to get that under control! my new goal is to complete the whole swim in crawl. ok, well, maybe i will start with completing the swim with mostly crawl, or how about without panicking and without hyperventilating? ok, thats a good goal.
results aren't posted yet and neither are photos. i saw them with the cameras and i tried to stretch my neck so that maybe i won't have a double chin in them. we will have to see what that is all about. i am so vain, but i am ok with that.
all in all, it was totally fun and a great experience! i can't beleive i did it! eric came out to watch and to cheer me and charity on. he managed to be in several places along the course and i saw him in each leg! it was so great to have him there and that he was so supportive of my race!

clothing

i had a conversation with a co-worker in which we discussed thongs. he made the good point that thongs are the only article of clothing that are specifically designed to touch the pooper. that is a good point. i love my VPL and will not wear a thong even before this conversation.