Finding Fault

My sympathies to my dear friends, Kathy and Vance, lost their dear dog Betsy to a brief illness this week.  She was a sweet dog and a good girl who was afraid of thunder and liked to cuddle.

She will be missed.

I ran in another 5K yesterday.  Scott hurt his calf last week, so came to cheer me on and take some pictures.  I’ve decided that I should always run in 5K runs that are paired with longer runs (there was also a 10K).  The longer race skims the really good runners out of my race, and I feel all the more impressive at the end.  In this case, out of 60 or so runners, I finished 15th overall, and was the fourth woman across the finish line.  I only took about 40 seconds off my time, but I’m proud to say I didn’t walk at all.

At the beginning of the race:

At the 2-mile marker:

And at the end.

I’m at the beginning of three weeks that I expect will be tough.  I co-teach our intro class, which means that each of us teaches for three weeks of the semester.  My three weeks starts today, which adds four hours of classroom time to my schedule.  The math is not as straightforward: four extra hours of classroom time also means another four hours of prep, and another two hours of grading each week.  On top of that, for these three weeks, I am getting to my office at 7am to prepare to teach at 8am for Monday-Thursday.  In short, I’m tired and a little cranky.

Scott’s doing his part to make things better, in his own special way.  Not long after we moved in, I got an envelope in the mail filled with “Welcome to Neighborhood” coupons.  Better than normal coupons, the bunch included coupons for free things from several local merchants, like a free pizza from the place around the corner (which we redeemed right away), and for a free bouquet from a local florist.

Scott planned on getting the bouquet when he “screwed something up.”  I convinced him that if he screwed something up and got me free flowers, he would have screwed up twice.  I advised him to use that coupon as soon as possible, so that when he screwed something up, he could get me not-free flowers to make up for it.

So today, at the beginning of this most hellish week, I left the house in the dark and came home to flowers and a dinner plan (sausages and pan-fried potatoes, plus roasted brussel sprouts).

What a pretty picture.

I’m just back from a very nice trip home to see everyone in Illinois – what with all the traveling and moving, I didn’t make it there this summer. The special treat was that I got to be at a birthday party for my oldest niece and nephew. It was a surprise party, but they were totally not surprised.

I got my niece to feign surprise afterwards.

They’ll really do anything for cake.

While I was in Illinois, Scott took a trip up to Maryland for a car rally. I’m hoping he’ll post about that. Now he’s staying up there for a few more days to deal with tenant issues and visiting his boat.

This may be part of an early mid-life crisis for me, but as I’ve mentioned before, we’ve both been doing a lot more exercise. I’m at the gym usually 2-3 days a week, Scott’s going almost every day, and on the weekends, we play tennis (badly on my end, but still having fun).

Our big adventure last weekend was running in a 5K race (a fundraiser for our local domestic violence group). We were both pretty out of practice – I ran in my first and last 5K almost four years ago in Orlando. I did stop to walk a couple of times, but I think it’s because I didn’t pace myself very well, because I still finished in a decent time (just under 29 minutes), and Scott finished a couple of minutes ahead of me. We both placed in the middle of our age groups.

We’ve got another race planned in a couple of weeks. Scott’s thinking about trying the 10K. I’m sticking with 5 until I can run it straight through.

I’m heading home to Illinois tomorrow for the long weekend – looking forward to some quality family time. (See you soon, Dad!)