I need a BREAK!

I am adjusting to my summer career as home party salesperson. I had toy parties on Friday and Saturday and an Arbonne party on Sunday. I am so whipped. I am not used to working on the weekends, the whole fu$%ing weekend. Yuck!

On Friday, I had a small toy party with a nice bunch of women. EXCEPT there was this lesbian there that was so thoroughly threatened by the mini-tongue that it was annoying. I guess that is how men feel when we come home with larger than life, um, tools of the trade! But let me tell you after three kids, I need a little help in the size department! Okay that was probably an over-share! Yeah, just maybe.

Oh also on Friday night's party, the topic of having sex with more than one partner at a time came up. Wouldn't you know the lesbian had had a threesome with two MEN, for pete's sake. Out of the seven of us there, four people had the opportunity of a multiple partner encounter. Not me, of course. I am too afraid about catching some awful disease. Almost every girlfriend I have has herpes and I am not going to catch any herpes from toys, so I think I'll just stick with those, thank you very much.

Another bitch of a thing when it comes to this new weekend business empire is it cuts into my running. I arrived home around 10:45pm on Friday, but I am so worked up from talking about sex all night that well let's just say that Mr. Chocolate had a little fun. Late night that night, couldn't get up to run with the Sat. am group, very sad. The party on Sat. did not get out until 1:00am, yikes! Mr. Chocolate was mad, no fun that night. Way to tired to run Sunday morning. Tomorrow is another day, I'm going to wake up early and enjoy a nice peaceful run while listening to the new Dixie Chicks cd. Yah for me!

Trails, Stairs, Interstates, and Hamburgers!

Here we are at the Xterra Challenge in Hartford, CT. It was a very fun race, you had to be flexible in your running anal retentive mindsets. The distance was fuzzy, always a guess. The course was full of obstacles, like LOTS of stairs and steep rocky inclines. There were no puddles though much to our disappointment, we like to get wet! Out of the five of us that ran, three took home some metal or actually the prizes for this race were bowls of candy! Good thing I didn't win, because I am trying to only eat one junky thing a week to help keep my ass from blowing up like a beach ball!

Xterra Race Night

My family and running friends are heading to Hartford tonight for the xterra trail race series. I am psyched, except that my oldest son is sick and won't be racing :( I am charging up my camera batteries so I can blog some race photos tommorrow.

I just finished James Frey's books - you know the guy that conned Oprah. I LOVED his books, they were well written and creative and I think Oprah made a big deal out of nothing. Tell me what you think if you read them.

Another One Bites The Dust

Well, I guess you could say I am a rodent lover. I have always enjoyed keeping rodents as pets. I guess it is linked to the preschool teacher gene. I have had dwarf hamsters, teddy bear hamsters, gerbils, and I even raised guinea pigs. That was really fun, we had at least three litters and those little guinea pig babies are sooooo cute, they come out all hairy and ready for the world, not like their mice cousins who come out all bald and tentative.

My latest rodents that I was keeping were called degus ( or as my partner teacher affectionately calls them - italian rats). They looked like a cross between a rat and gerbil. They had to come in pairs, because otherwise they get lonely.

Well I have a problem, because now there is only one left.

I know there were two degus in the cage on Thursday morning when I fed them. Both Fred and Barney were happy to get those yummy carrots and both looked healthy as well. Well when I checked them again on Saturday, only Barney was in the cage and he was whimpering. (really he was, they make these like whistling sounds). I called my youngest son out to help me figure out where Fred went and we were faced with a mystery. Fred's body was nowhere to be seen. Upon further investigation, we found unmistable signs of foul play, (ie fur and teeth-yikes!) We still don't know what happened to little Fred, but the possibilities are many. It was a sad day in the preschool-teacher-rodent-loving world.

That's some high quality H2O

Today while running on some gnarly trails, I was soooooo dehydrated. I really needed the waterboy to help me! I have had this feeling before while running but usually it is while I am running on the streets and I am from a small town and know about half the town and have ventured onto friends' property to suck down as much water from their hose as I can! I have even been dehydrated in the winter on long runs. Last winter I sucked right from the spicket of my son's friend home and he thought it was hilarious when I told him the story when I got home.

Today was a different story, no house with a hose nearby, just a huge body of water that I couldn't drink! I started the run feeling tired, but happy to be with friends. By about mile three, I could feel an even stronger fatigue. By about mile five, my clothes were soaked and my mouth was completely dry. We have a tradition that we have to spit from a bridge when we pass by it and I could only summon a few drops! Finally at mile seven, we stopped running in the woods and passed through our friend's house with a cold, lovely, clear, high quality H20. It was almost as good as....chocolate!

It was amazing how my body felt after being rehydrated. Energy back, muscles primed and ready for the last mile, I was able to finish with my head held high! But I felt the effects of dehydration all day though. My muscles were very tired as was my spirit. I took a nice nap this afternoon and treated myself to a hunka chunka peanutbutter fudge ice cream cone BEFORE dinner. And guess what this little piggy-runner had for dinner??? Boiled lobster drenched in butter, corn on the cob, baked potato, steamers, and a little tiny salad. I might even have dessert after I am done blogging! LIFE IS GOOD!

Car-less and bored

This week my two older sons' visited their grandma in NC, beaching and surfing all day. This was particularly frustrating because my littlest son and I were without a car and stranded at home for four out of the five days this week. Just like when you lose electricity, being car-less is very debilitating. You just mope around not being able to do anything worthwhile. It is so weird. You would think I would get so much stuff done around my house, but no all I do is call all my friends I can't go see.

Tomorrow we have our group run always a highlight of running week. I am reading "My Friend, Leonard" by James Frey, in which he hardly uses commas, so if I forget to punctuate appropriately, please forgive me. Tonight I have an Athena's party, hopefully I make some good money. Tell you all about it tomorrow!

Here we are at the Lyman Viaducts in East Hampton, CT. It doesn't look very high in the photo, but let me tell you, I was shaking in my tevas when I jumped! I only jumped off once because well two reasons really. Reason number one, I almost peed my bathing suit the first time and I didn't want to risk it jumping another time. Reason number two, it hurt my ears. My boys told me I made a big splash, I am not sure to be happy or sad about that. They thought it was cool, of course.

I am out of my running slump. I have enjoyed running everyday since the last race when I kicked some booty! This weekend was my turn to host the club's run and I planned it to end at a swimming hole. We had nine people runnning together for about 8 miles and then five of us went for a dip. I LOVE swimming after running. I am not a good swimmer so even though it would appear that a duatholon should be in my future, it's not. The arm moving and breathing thing just baffles me. I can stay afloat and grind out swimming to little islands in the lake or reservior, but to like swim in a competetion would just be embarrassing.

Anyway after the swim, we all loaded up in my minivan, sometimes called the shaggin wagon on weekends;), and headed to Dunkin Donuts. My sweet runnning girlfriends surprised me with double chocolate cupcakes for my 38th birthday!! We ate chocolate cupcakes at 8:30 in the morning in Dunkin Donuts parking lot! We all know I can eat chocolate and a lot of it, but I usually don't start quite that early! It was totally great though!

It's A Family Affair

I had the greatest time on Friday night. I know what you are thinking, no not that kinda fun, the wholesome kind of fun! My family and I caravaned to East Hampton, CT for the Glorious Gallop road race. My stepdad, husband, brother in law, two of my sisters and one sister's boyfriend and my son and I all raced in this awesome point to point 5K.

Well, my 13y son and speedy stepdad took off like wild banchees at the start and I never saw them again until I finished. My husband started out way too fast and I passed him at mile one. I was having a great race, I felt so freakin' great and I knew I was running a good race. I purposely did not wear a watch, because I wanted to count on my own body to tell me if I was running a good race. I passed two local running women that are not in my age group, but they usually do beat me at about mile 2. I thought I had buried my sisters and the boyfriend and my brother in law as well. BUT at the last turn at about mile three, my brother in law freakin' passed me. I tried to catch him but I finished four seconds behind him. But I recovered a lot faster so there!

We did bring home some hardware though. My son came in first in his age group with a respectable 21:59 pace for a 5K. I gave my second best 5K performance in my life at 23:35. I was very happy. The finish line ends at a small town carnival with all the junk food one can imagine! I ate a baked potato with broccoli and sour cream. We also ate some cinnamon roasted nuts. They did not have any good chocolate, so I waited till the next day for "Holstein" ice cream from WE-LIK-IT ice cream stand. It is so rich and creamy, I had a stomach ache for the rest of the day, but it is sooooo worth it!

Tired

I was talking with my stepdad last night and we both discovered that we are experiencing the same duldrums about running. I just don't have the umph! to get up and go. When I finally drag my fat ass out of bed to run, then the running is pretty mediocre. I try to remind myself that all things in life have waves or cycles and I am in a downswing for my running.

I am on an upswing with my side businesses though. In addition to adult "toys", I now peddle skin care products for Arbonne International. The two business go hand-in-hand really, people want to look good in order to attract partners for the other business!!!

I did run six miles this hot and steamy morning and I felt pretty good, not great ,but good!