My brush with greatness

As a general rule I never know what to expect at my in-laws house. Nothing ever bad really... just different, Louisiana-style. I can't tell you how many times I have run into wildlife in their kitchen... squirrels, raccoons, ducks, all being nursed back to health by his mom. The proof of one of those creatures is shown below although not in her kitchen at the time.

Then there are the food surprises. I've decided that people from Louisiana (outside of New Orleans anyway) will eat ANYTHING! I've actually had squirrel and have been told about eating raccoon and nutria (www.nutria.com/site.php). I have my limits... I will refuse nutria if I know that is what it is. I have to draw the line somewhere!

This Thanksgiving visit to the in-law's house provided the usual surprises but fortunately this one didn't involve wildlife... at least not the kind that I'm referring to above. This wildlife was in human form and goes by the name of Ruth Buzzi. Now if you are too young, you might not remember Ruth Buzzi but she was a regular on Laugh-In when I was young. Turns out I'm related to her now. Like me, she married into this crazy Louisiana family!

It was an interesting Thanksgiving to say the least. Ruth is known for her crazy slapstick kind of antics on TV and we did see a little bit of that after dinner. For the most part she is pretty much just a down-to-earth lady who despite her fame is not above traveling to Cental Louisiana to hang with us commoners.

For those of you too young to remember her... look her up on You Tube which incidentally we are watching in the above picture on my computer. She was most fascinated about the things you can find on the internet! :)

Happy (late) Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for:

1. My husband (and that I finally have one)
2. Having my stepdaughter living with us
3. Our awesome house
4. My parents and in-laws
5. Having a decent, stable job

Now for the less serious stuff:

1. Roomba (see my last post)
2. My soon to be pool, patio cover, and outdoor fireplace

My new love

I have a new love in my life and please don't tell my husband! He's a hardworker... cleans my floors whenever I ask him to. With two other people in this house who often create more mess than they pick up. I leave the floors to him and I take care of the rest (in between the maid coming anyway). Wanna know who he is?

Most people call him Roomba. I call him amazing! He runs around my house cleaning up after all of us especially the very small shedding dog. And as an added bonus, the dog is just a little freaked out by Roomba. It's good for a little amusement for me.

Mud pit sweet mud pit

No updates lately because it's pretty much looked the same for the last few days. People have been digging trenches and laying pipe and electrical lines. Today there is one difference: no trenches and two posts.

I think they are done digging trenches in the yard. I can't imagine that there is anything more they could possibly sink into the ground. I'm pretty sure there is no more room. Well there is the sprinkler system but that will only be laid around the edge of the yard since most of it will be concrete.

The two posts are the first sign of our soon to come patio cover. I'm not sure if you have been to Texas and specifically Houston but if not, I will confirm for you that it's hot here. Pretty much sweltering for all but 3 or 4 months a year when it becomes pleasantly cool. Because of this I believe all houses here should be required to have some sort of patio cover. Otherwise you may as well not leave the house until dark and even then it's often still hot. Many of our neighbors are lucky enough to have one already. We have to build one. It should be nice when it's done.

Pictures of our mud pit:

Midday pool update

OK! Now it looks like a bomb exploded in the backyard!!

Working into the night

It's almost 8pm and the gunite guys are STILL here. They have been working straight through since about 6:15 this morning. I think it was the guys doing the rebar work early but the gunite started pretty early. It's really neat how they do it. The gunite comes through a long tube and is literally shot into the walls of the pool.

Day 2 of Pool Construction

I'm amazed at how quickly they can dig a very large hole.


Tomorrow they promise gunite! More pics to come.

OK, so it doesn't quite look like a bomb

The digging has started and while it doesn't look quite like a bomb exploded, it can hardly be described as pretty! The dog is wondering what happened.

Paradise is coming soon!

We have jumped in feet first (so to speak) and decided to add a pool, patio cover and outdoor fireplace to our currently boring backyard. Here is the current state of the backyard:


Tomorrow it should start looking like a bomb was dropped.

Below is a picture of the dog enjoying the grass for the last day. She is sitting on what will be concrete soon. Little does she know!


More updates to come!

Marathon Chronicles - The training series

If I cared about winning, this picture would be titled "The agony of defeat!" Fortunately I don't care.

This is my least favorite part of marathon training... the training series. I know that running in organized races is necessary to the training. Running in a race is different in the fact that you tend to get caught up in the excitement and run too fast. So these are necessary to get you used to running your own race and not run everyone else's.

I still hate them. At least the ones that we have in Houston. You would think that a city the size of Houston could find a better course to run. It's hard enough to run 13 or 15.5 miles without having to run loops on concrete.

Two weeks ago was the half marathon (13.1 miles) that is part of the training series. It was perfect weather and I did really well. I didn't feel good at all at the end but I ran faster than expected and ended up finishing in 2 hours and 12 minutes. This isn't a time to impress your friends with but it was respectable for me and I was quite happy with it.

That was right after I finished. Six hours later I was not so happy. I hurt so bad that I couldn't get comfortable. I took some ibuprofin and was able to sleep. I was really sore for days.

Yesterday was the 25K race. The conditions sucked! I think it was 70 degrees in Houston at 7am when the race started and I'm pretty sure it was around 80 degrees when I finished. I felt bad from about 5 miles to the end of the 15.5 miles that I ran. This course is three laps of the most boring running you could imagine.

I started out running 9 minutes and walking 1 minute. On my way in from the last loop, I started running 4 minutes and walking 1 minute. Let me tell you that this was the longest 4 minutes of my life every time I had to start running again. I really didn't know if I was going to finish. I did finish because you see, there was a jacket at the end. I paid about $40 so that I could run 15.5 miles for a jacket that I am pretty sure I could have bought for $40. I'm not sure I understand my own logic! Oh and the stupid thing doesn't fit. My husband will be enjoying it though.

I am happy that this part of the training is done. I dread these races but I run them. There is also a 30K race that happens 3 weeks from now but Houston Fit training program doesn't run it. I'm told it's worse than the 25K and even more boring. They run their own unofficial 30K which is a lovely course that takes us through parks and around the Rice campus.

My hubby and I may skip this one and do a trail run up in Huntsville, TX north of Houston. This race (Sunmart) is a 50K and 50 miler. We will not be doing the 50 miler. I think 31 miles of a 50K is plenty of abuse. I'm told that this will be much easier than the marathon because of the softer surfaces. I've wanted to do this one for years now and I think we will be signing up for it soon. Wish us luck and hope that we survive another day so I can add it to the marathon chronicles.

Homecoming Week! I lived through it! Mostly....

This is a little late because I tend to be a slacking blogger but better late than never I say!

The hubby and I lived through homecoming week. It was a fun-filled week of running the teenager to the store for this and to another store for that. Pretty much during the week when I get home, I don't really want to go anywhere. But apparently I'm a big sucker for that sad little 14 year old face saying "But it's homecoming week and I need ____!" I will just say that I was so very happy when it ended!

The "date" that the teenager was going to the dance with dropped off her "mum" for school around Wednesday of that week. I'm told this is a Texas tradition so you might not be familiar. This has been around since before I was in high school. Way back when... when I was in high school the average mum consisted of a real Chrysanthemum mounted on a piece of cardboard with a plethora of ribbon hanging from it that reached your knees which you pinned to your clothing. The girls with better mums had a double Chrysanthemum and the ribbon almost dragged the ground. As you can see from the picture below, things have changed. They don't use real flowers anymore and the average size mum has grown... well tripled in size from the mid-80's. They can no longer pin them... they must hang these monstrosities from their neck. I only wish I could have gotten a picture of the big ones... or the one that had battery operated christmas lights intertwined in the flowers.

The day of the dance was drama-filled. The first bit of drama was that the teenager's mom did not make it into town for the big event. I will say that said teenager took this quite well considering this was her first homecoming. I'm not so sure I would have handled this news without lots of makeup destroying tears involved. She took that piece of news in stride.

What this meant for me though was that my mostly relaxing day waiting for her to get her makeup and hair done was now filled with lots of driving.... again. Not having any kids of my own, I didn't think I would ever have the opportunity to get to do this. So in that respect it was really nice for me to get to experience. Had her mom's car not been broken down, she would have been the one to take her to all of the appointments and I would have just seen the final result. I will secretly (or not so secretly anymore) admit that it was fun to see how excited she got after each appointment when she saw the results. I took her home after her appointment and she got dressed and ready to go. At that point my hubby joined us for the trip to drop her off to have pictures taken. I have included one below...

As you can see, I have a good reason to be worried about boys. I think we might have to lock her up until she hits 35!

Then for the next drama event... After we got to the photo location, we were waiting and waiting for the date to show up. We had been taking pictures with her and her friends when she finally decided to call to see when he was going to show up. Seems as if there were two limos for this group. One starting at our location and the other starting at another. I'm not sure who planned this bit of brilliance but I am sure it wasn't me.

Apparently the boy's friend, who the boy was staying with, convinced him that the other location was where he was supposed to be. Mind you, I sent multiple emails to the boy's mom so that they would end up at the correct place. Well, the mom allowed the boy to stay with a friend the night before and obviously did not pass all the information on to the parents who were dropping these kids off.

Needless to say when the teenager found out that her date would not be able to make it for pictures, lots of makeup destroying tears started. Let's just say I'm new at this parenting thing so I wasn't quite sure how to stop the tears. Apparently my hubby is new at this too because he made it worse but calling the boy an idiot for not reading the directions. (Yes, I did scold him for that later).

Fortunately the teenager calmed down and decided that since her date wasn't there, she would claim everyone's date and have a picture made with all of them. I like how she bounces back! ;)


Fortunately both limos were meeting at the same restaurant. We followed the limo there and got a few pictures with the boy. All was well!