Running from the slackers perspective

Week 5 day 1 is proving to be easier than week 4.  Maybe it's because in between the five minute running intervals there are three glorious minutes of walking.  Now I am going to reward myself with another cupcake.

Week 4: Day 3

That was yesterday that I finished week 4.  Week 4 turned out to be brutal.  I mean, I actually have to run for 5 minutes straight. Several times at that. (gasp- literally)   It was supposed to look something like this: Warmup 5:00 walk, run 3:00, walk 1:30, run 5:00, walk 2:30, run 3:00, walk 1:30, run 5:00, cool down.  I could not seem to keep running on that last 5 minute run. Each time I would poop out at about 4 minutes.  Maybe it had something do with pushing the perpetually turning stroller uphill.  One benefit to having a stroller, however, is on the walking segments when I feel like hunching over to catch my breath, I can support myself on the stroller and hunch over and keep walking, quite handy actually.
So the big question is, do I repeat a day of week 4 or just move on to week 5 tomorrow.  I will make a game time decision on that one.

My addiction

  Target is such an addiction, a drug of sorts, and an experience.  Don't tell me you can go in there get the essentials and get out. I mean seriously, I have to breeze past all the end caps to see what sort of awesome mark downs are awaiting me.  Target makes me happy.  On a bad day just a walk through Target will lift my spirits as I look at all the merchandise they have to offer, cute things, big things, toys, treats, clothes, jewelry, shoes, anything under $5 makes my heart leap a little.  What other store can offer all of that.  Those curtain panels two 84" panels for $4.98.  Even if I just use the fabric it's worth it.  The lamp, $5.74.  Not bad you may say.   They would make great accents in my newly painted living room.  Payment for my addiction; things that shift around in the hatch back. { Big sad face with tears streaming}.  Should I go back and get another?  Maybe the furry one instead?

Birthday Boy

One year ago today Caedmon John changed our lives forever.  Can't believe it is has been a year already.  The first 6 months were a blur of sleepless nights, but he has been a joy.  Full of smiles and snuggles and such personality.  I love how he greets everyone with kiss (that is..he blows kisses to everyone he meets).  He wants to do everything his big brother does,though he isn't walking yet.  He has two little teeth and some more must be on the way.  He has a way of making everyone uncomfortable along with him.  He has been my little buddy this year, attached to my hip for sure.  He has the sweetest little husky chuckle, loves to blow raspberries on every surface. The leather couch, the table, my arm, my leg he will try it on anything.  I was carrying him through the store today in my hip sling and he was doing some ferocious sounding raspberries on my arm, and then stopping occasionally to laugh at me trying to put a stop to it.  It was a slightly embarrassing sound coming from us. I love that little guy, and his sweet sweet snuggles.

1 Year

6 weeks

                                                                         

Nicknames

This funny boy has had several different nicknames for me since he could talk.  Mommy has evolved to Momina, then Mommy-Jenn, Jenn Fogle, Mommers, Mommer the Bomber and now it is Mommer bo bomber.  I hear this numerous times a day.  I just wanted to write this down so I don't forget.

Week 3 Day 3: complete

I have made it this far on the Couch to 5k program!  I have my trusty iPod kicking my butt.  I am not good at pushing myself, but put me in a sport with a coach or group exercise and I will push myself as hard as the person next to me.  So I knew running would be a challenge but this app I have tells me when to run and when to walk.  Don't be fooled I am still walking well over half of the 30 minutes that I am out there, but it has been relatively easy as I think I would have pushed myself too hard only to get tired too soon and want to give up.  The only embarrassing thing about having an iPod tell you what to do is to have other people hear it.  I don't use headphones right now I just set it in the basket of my stroller, so I groan inwardly when I am passing someone only to hear my iPod say "run now".  But it works for me.  My biggest struggle right now is getting the boys ready,  it has been taking 30-40 minutes to get Dane out the door.  I feel like he is trying to sabotage me every step of the way.  Throwing a fit because I want to dress him warm, so I don't have to hear him say 'I want to go home' the entire time we are out, or just throwing a fit because he doesn't want to get in the stroller.  If I don't get Dane out there soon enough then we run into Cade's nap time and if he's tired then he cries the entire time.  Oh yeah and the double jogger turns right the entire time because of a wonky wheel I don't know how to fix.  Other than those obstacles everything is going great!

So the couch to 5k that I am using is a time based program and you run for a certain amount of time.  I figured it out and I seem to be running/walking  just over 2 miles.  I was wondering how it gets you to 5k just by using time.  So I decided on the 3rd day of each week to go a longer distance.  I will follow the timed program which takes me once around Grays Lake, which is 2 miles. Then I am going to do a second lap at my own pace, or like today we went at Dane's pace. He road his balance bike all the way around.  So that's that, hope the weather stays nice because there is no way I will get Dane into a snowsuit or something if it gets that cold.

Apples and picture scrambles

I was going to post a couple before and after pictures of projects that I have worked on lately regarding spray paint for one and a sisal rope for another.  But the mad picture scramble on this computer is making it impossible.  
You see at the beginning of the summer our computer almost crashed, well it did but my brother-in-law fixed it and chased away the nasty viruses.  When I got it back my pictures were no where to be found.  He said it shouldn't be a big deal since he didn't delete anything and even if he did that is usually recoverable as well.  Great! I thought and he recovered all the pictures!  Even better I thought.  Until I got the computer back only to realize that my meticulously organized folders were gone and there 8,000 give or take pictures in one large folder, and in no particular order.  Well it seems each folder at least stayed grouped together, but I think he recovered ALL of the pictures that have ever been on this computer- so all the blurry ones I had once deleted have reappeared.  On top of all of that, ALL of the pictures are at least duplicated if not copied up to eight times on some of them.  Phew! at least I didn't take 8,000 pictures!  The weirdest thing is the computer still acts as if these pictures and folders still exist.  Like if I go to add pictures into my folder labeled 'crafts' it will tell me that folder already exists and then it will ask if I want to merge the folders, of course I want to merge the folders we don't need any more duplicates.  It whisked my pictures away to said 'craft' folder.  And now I can't find them.  I mean if I do a search for 'craft' folder I can find it but I can't seem to get them to where I can use them. I have even tried to follow the trail when I go into the place where it asks you where you want to save them.  It seems simple but as soon as I try to find them, they don't exist.  So if you are still reading this complicated boring computer problem and know how to help, would you like to set up a 'help Jenn fix her pictures' date?  On the bright side I only have 1,890 pictures left to sort through.  Even our back-up hard drive is messed up with a couple of 'layers' of saved info.  I want to just get these organized saved on a hard drive, and then start fresh with our brand spankin' new Apple computer.  Now I have all sorts of new things to adjust to.  Now back to that picture disaster, and if you are an expert on saving and organizing and computer glitch fixing, I am serious about needing help.

Grant

Still praying for my cousin Grant.  He is a 10 year old football loving, farm kid just getting ready to start his first season of football.  He had is appendix out 2 weeks ago and during the procedure the surgeon, accidentally and with out realizing it, cut the aorta 3/4 of the way through.  Grant survived for 19 hours before the doctors were able to identify the problem.  Most people only live 4-7 minutes. He has gone from doctors thinking he wouldn't make it through the night to he might make it, but will probably have some disabilities.  There are so many many things still trying to recover such as kidneys, bowels, legs and other organs, that all is a result of having little to no blood flow for a period of time.  He seems to be cognitively aware, processing information and communicating, so we are all praising God he hasn't seemed to loose any or much brain function though his brain too went with very little blood flow for a period of time.  The risk of infection is also still very high as his abdomen is still open as are the incisions on his legs.  He had another surgery today.  Here is a link to his Caring Bridge site for more details.