more hate, and some love, too

i hate that i kind of like snoop dog. maybe i like to see him in movies but not really his music. maybe that is it. i definitly like to seem him in starsky and hutch in just hi boxer shorts because he is the tiniest man in the world.

i hate that last week i cried at work. twice. oh my god, it was terrible. the worst and to make it even worse i cried on the phone to my boss. oh my god, talk about humiliating. thank god that i am now on vacation. for a week plus the extra day for labor day. ugh, what a mess. i am so embarrassed and its just so lame.

i got my hair done. every 9 months to a year i get around to getting my hair done. i had it done back in december so i was due. i had the faboulous duo of richard and james dean work on my color and cut. richard is my new best friend. we are both totally grossed out by richie sambora, denise richards and kid rock. we both love america's next top model. the best part about richard is that i told him i wanted a good hair make over and that they could do whatever they wanted just as long as it didn't make my face look fat. after he washed the color stuff out and was putting my hair in the turban he said to me very sincerely that he thinks its funny that i woul be so concerned about having a fat face because my face was the futhest thing from being fat. he is my new best friend. james dean was awesome as well i think he did the whole cut using a straight blade. i wasn't really expecting it to be so short but its not too bad. james dean is a little asian man who works out and has a little bit of facial hair. he doesn't talk much and when he did i could barely hear him. i think he is pretty shy because the girls next to us were trying to get all chatty with him and he seemed to be getting embarrassed the whole time. while i am not sure that he is a new best friend, i do think he is my new hair cutter.

seamus is getting so tall. her jeans that she got at the beginning of the summer that were falling off of her are now on the verge of being too short. we took her to the zoo on monday. she almost didn't get to go because she hit me. she didn't just hit me, she was wailing on me. so not cool. but we eventually got her to apologize so she got to go. sirus slept. but seamus saw a giraffe that was "really, really, really, really tall." a lot of the animals were out and about so it was a fun visit for us all.

later in the day we filled up the pool and seamus and sirus played for hours it seemed. a friend from work gave us an awesome treadmill but we have no where to put it, so its on the patio under the deck. this actually works pretty well because i was able to run on it but also be in pretty much arms reach of the kids while they played. it made the time go by quick. we have a tarp for the treadmill for when it rains but really we haven't had much rain yet. it will likely have to make its way into the garage.

we went and saw a bunch of people's babies recently. we saw sunna last friday, oliver on sunday and i saw zander yesterday. man, there are a lot of babies going on.

tonight is the last wednesday night mtn bike race of the season until the cyclocross wedneday nights start up. my mom is coming to watch the kids and i am going to head out with eric for some social interaction and adult beverages. tomorrow is seamus's first gymnastics class! i hope she has fun.

we are headed to mt hood this weekend for chad and charity's wedding. we are leaving the kids at grandma and grandpa's and it will be two nights away! oh my goodness. yesterday after getting my hair done i stopped in at betsy johnson. i hate that place but managed to exercise some self restraint i found an awesome dress that i was totally digging but managed to not buy it. it was pretty rocking though.maybe te dress wasn't as flattering as i thought? maybe it was the platform stilettos they let me try on with it that made me look extra tall? maybe it was the lighting that made my shoulders and collar bone be acentuated or maybe it was that awesome mirror there that makes you look totally awesome in anything you put on at that damn store.

instead i imagine i will wear my standard wedding attire. its betsey johnson, too, but i have managed to wear it to adam's wedding, nathan's wedding, derek's wedding and now i will wear it to chad and charity's too. i think actually that i wear betsey johnson to everyone's wedding - luan's, nate and andrea, mark d's. those three were at least different dresses, all that have made appearances at various other events. i even almost wore a betsey johnson dress to my own wedding reception except that i don't know if bright red would have been totally appropriate?

ok thatis all for now. eric and seamu sare outside. eric is working on his cross bike and seamus is playing with a cheerios's race car. sirus is napping. ok, later.

is she ready?

i think she might be. seamus starts gymnastics next week. after today's display of agility, i think she is ready.

yes, that is the wall that she has her feet on. she kept telling us that she was exercising.


and if you were wondering, this is what "playing cushions" looks like:

hate

there are a few things i hate. one being that i loved watching hell's kitchen and i hate that the season is now over. that show was pretty much dumb but i watched it religiously every week.

so it turns out i was the last official finisher. we know there were more that either dropped out or just came in after me because i had passed those people that never passed me again and the girl with the broken elbow was still waiting for her friend to finish when we left. like i said, i am ok with coming in last. there was a woman there who finished 50th overall, 8th among women, at 2:16 who was the overall winner of the women at the Seafair tri. she was only 6:31 per minute faster then me. ha!

we had the nicest evening last night. i was so tired when i got home and still really sore. but we loaded up the kids and walked down to the u village for dinner. seamus ran the whole way down and was really good at dinner. the food was awesome the atmosphere was great, we had an awesome waiter who asked seamus directly if she wanted grated parmesian on her penne, and seamus was really well behaved. after we went to the play area and she and sirus went nuts just running around and climbing up and sliding down and having a great time. then we walked home. it was just so relaxing.

i have made some sleeping changes that seem to be helping. my left foot hurts when i go to sleep i will start to doze off and then they start twitching and it wakes me up and then they start aching and then my legs and then its just terrible and it seems to be in my wrists a lot lately too. the left foot has been an issue ever since highschool. it doesn't happen when i take naps during the day, only at night time. so i usually get up and take something. lately though, nothing seems to help and it was getting really bad. so, my new thing is icepacks in the bed. I just lay them in the bed and rest my foot and leg on them while i doze off and it seems to be working quite well. the past two nights i have gotten some pretty good sleep and i haven't had to take any pain medicine at all. hooray!hopfully it will last. i still seem to be having this weird kind of upper body twitch that i don't seem to understand. i gave blood a few weeks back and it has been happening ever since then. i have no clue.

17 free sandwiches

right now we are 5 of 7 towards our 17th free sandwich. do you know how many sandwiches that is? 117 that we have paid for plus 16 free ones. that is a lot of sandwiches!

looks like i can post photos again

the progressions of sirus at the JC Penny photo studio

there would have been some at 2 weeks but they LOST them

here he is at 1 month




here he is at 2 months




i have some at 3 months but i can't find them and i totally missed 6 months

here he is at 9 months!





and now the little guy is almost 10.5 months old!

13 miler

all week i have been feeling not quite right i'm not pregnant, it turns out, so that is good. but it leaves mewondering why i have been feelign the way i have. all week i debated about the 13 mile trail run on saturday. i decided to do it but debated up until the time they sent us off whether it was really a good idea. here is how the race went.

i start out the race thinking ideally i would like to come in at 2:30 but realistically i think 3:00 would be more on target.

Pre-race meeting: they tell us there is 2700 ft of vertical, they tell us there is a water station at 3 and 9 miles. they say at mile 10 there is 600 ft of vertical in that mile so to make sure to be ready for it but then after it the rest is flat or downhill.
they send us off.
15 minutes into the race - there is a hill, the same one from the 5 miler i had done a while back
20 minutes in: i am thinking this was a really bad idea
35 minutes in: i hit the 3 mile water station. eric, the kids and the photographer are here. eric took some pictures.
42 minutes in: i stop to pee on the side of the trail
1:07 in: i am starting to feel pretty good and think this is actually going to be ok. i catch a girl who asks me the time and i tell her i think we are probably a little over 5 miles in. she doesn't believe me but i think that is where we are. about this same time i set my new goal to hit the 9 mile mark at 2:00
1:48 in: i am thinking i might not get to 9 miles by 2:00 since the trail does not look to be heading in any direction where there might be a water station. about this time, i think, ok, next year, i will come better trained, less vertigoed and i will kick some ass.
2:20 in: i start heading up hill. seriously up hill, like so up hill that its straight up switch backs and they are kicking my ass. i think - is this the hill that was supposed to be at mile 10? did they close down the water station because i was taking so long? i was totally ok with that idea i keep going straight up. it never ends. i have to stop a few times, i almost start to cry because it just keeps going and going. i don't cry because if i did two things would happen: i would wind up totally bawling and then i would never get out and the other is that i would then be "they cryer", ya know, the person who isn't hurt but is crying anyway. at this point i decide to screw coming back next year and instead i will drop out at the 9 mile water station.
2:40 i get to the water station and am like "what the fawk!" 40 minutes past my revised goal. ugh. i hang out, have a pretzel, joke with the lady there, some guy tells me that that hill was the big hill and there aren't any more, the lady assures me there isn't anything tramatic in the last4 miles. i grab some more water, some more pretzels and head out. i tell them it will be another hour until they see me at the finish.
2:54 they are big fat liers!!! there is that 600 ft climb. i go way slow, slowere then slow, slower then the slowest of all slow. then i get to the top.
here is when i lost track of time pretty much. i take up a new tactic where i will run for 5 minutes and then walk for 5. it turns into run for like 2 and walk for like 15. i get to some markings on the trail where there are arrows and ribbons pointing in both directions and i just stood there for the longest time tryingt o figure out what to do. i pick my route and run into some horses who say i am almost done. i hit one last water station and they say its .6 miles to the finish. i can run .6 miles! ok, apparantly i couldn't, but i did run most of it.
3:40 i finish. there was no feeling of releif, there was no feeling of great accomplishment. i just wanted to sit down. seamus and i walked to the car. she wanted to watch the water run down the parking lot. and i just couldn't stand up any more so i sat on the ground and she wound up sitting with me.
the two people who came in right before me was a man who was doing the race in tevas and a woman who broke her elbow and cracked her hip mtn biking three weeks earlier. i as not last, i don't think, but i very well could have been the last finisher. i had passed some people at the three mile water station that didn't pass me later but we did not stick around to see if they ever finished.
today i feel sore but suprisingly ok. i tend to kick myself in the left ankle when i am tired so i have a bruise there and i have a really big blister UNDER a callous on that same foot. i have a few other blisters as well, but luckily i didn't discover them until after the race. they did their job and did not pop.
so, i might not do this event next year, but i do think i might try the seattle 1/2 marathon in november. the danskin triatlon is next weekend, the issaquah triathlon is the weekend after that and then the escape from the rock, mercer island is september 10. then i can rest and decide about the 1/2.

oh my gawd

i think i have the vertigo again. this is so not good. last night around 930 the room just started spinning. round and round it went. and round and round it is still going. its not as bad right now that i am at my desk and not moving at all, but once i do anything it makes me want to puke.

as i was leaving to come to work eric sent me off with these parting words: maybe you are pregnant again.

this scares me because i got the vertigo very early in both of my previous pregnancies. i think i am going to cry and then throw up.

the drama, oh the drama

since there isn't anything on tv right now except for the number one comedy, 2 and 1/2 men, oh my gawd, how can that be the #1 comedy? how could charlie sheen be nomintated for an emmy? what is going on? i decided to fill ya'll in on the drama.

i bought a sewing machine and have been sewing a bunch i made seamus a pair of pants and two dresses. i had ordered the fabric a long long time ago and even cut out the patterns but never got around to it. so now they are done. just the one dress needs some buttons.

eric went on a mtn bike ride with his friends yesterday. he left the house at 730am. he got home at 930pm. the ride was 3 hours long. what was the other 11 hours for?

while eric was out seamus and the neighbor girl were playing in the backyard. i was back there watching them play and taking photos and all was great. until the neighbor girl fell off the slide and hit her head on the cement retaining wall. blood was squirting everywhere. luckily her dad was right there. she stopped crying as soon as they went home and she wanted to come back and play with seamus but everyone stayed indoors the rest of the day. she turned out to be ok but man, i am so overly protetive and paranoid about that stuff and then boom, i was sitting there watching as it happened. it makes me feel terrible. i am glad she is ok. she wa over here playing in the yard again today, so that is good at least.

my car is in the shop. yeah, we all know that. its been like 20 days now. i called vw and told them i was lemon lawing them. they are looking into it. their customer care people are so awesome. and the people at the dealership where i bought the car have been really great, too. except when at first they weren't going to give me a loaner car. but they have been really helpful so its been good. now i am faced with if they buy the car back from me, what kind of car do i want? i could do it all over again. that vw eos looks pretty fun but that's not around until september i think. i do like the passat, though. we will see. all i know is that i don't really trust getting it back on day 29.

i signed seamus up for some gymnastics classes. it will be interesting. its for 2 1/2 - 3yr olds and does not involve parental participation. eric will be taking her on thursday mornings. i will go to her first one though. i hope she has fun. she is pretty advanced in all the physical stuff already so it might not be challenging for her that way but she will have to take turns and there will be other kids there, too.

eric, the kids and i went on an aproximate 9 mile run on saturday. it was actually not that bad. until saturday and sunday night when we have both had terrible insomnia.

for dinner tonight seamus had a very spicey bratwurst. it was really spicey but she just ate it no problem. she is a funny one.

we took the kids to a baby and kids modeling and talent agency and they want to sign up sirus. seamus's screaming and running around when they tried to see how tall she was didn't really impress them, but sirus layed the charm on pretty thick as he tends to do. we will have to see what happens next, if anything.

everyone is having babies. starla had hers this weekend, and david and stephanie had theirs, too. erik's is on its way, craig and jean had theirs just a few weeks ago and luan's and also mikki's will be coming here pretty soon, too. so that is 6 babies. that doesn't include kathleens, jamie's, bradie's or brandy's all from earlier this year, or rena's a bit later. add onto that my sister's friends john and rajesh and the population just doubled.

ok, that is all.

bye bye

so this morning, after waking up all cranky and sick with what seems to be a fever and a running, snotty nose, sirus said what we are pretty sure were his first words! eric was holding him and i gave them kisses and i waved and said bye bye and sirus semi-waved back and said bye bye, too!! eric an di looked at him and that each other and were both like - hey - did we just hear that!

this moring sirus and i played donuts. its a new game that i think he made up this morning. i sit on the floor and he brings me the colored plastic donuts that stack on the thing, ya know the toy i am talking about? so he gives me a donut and then he would take it away. turn to the side and then turn back and give it back to me. this was apparently a lot of fun.

seamus plays cushions. that is a game where she takes all if the cushions off of the couch and does whatever with them. last night she told me she didn't want to play cushions.

on sunday she told me she loved me, but i didn't hear it. i was busy talking to my mom and she said somethign and hugged me and then turned to my mom and said the same thing to her and hugged her. my mom heard it and said she was saying that she loved us. i wish i could hear it.

so, the word of digital cameras is great. you can take 100807 photos and really the only thing you pay for is the initial investment of your camera. i got an email from a friend who stored their family photos on their computer and their computer recently died. they lost all of the ir photos from the past two years, including all of the ones of their son's birth and everything since then. eric kind of makes fun of me for making 237874589273 copies of our photos and stashing those copies in various locations like my office and work and the safety deposit box, but once those photos are gone, they will never come back.

my car is still in the shop.