What Is A Turd?

Ok, I am here with my kiddos in sunny Colorado, for an extended stay, really enjoying myself. Well, sis and I made a rash decision to gather up this herd of kids and go "out" today. Oi. Seems like we got into the car about 10:00 a.m., not bad for 2 moms vs. 5 kids. We went multiple places, and all in all, the kids were great, you know, trailing along behind us dragging their fingers across everything in their path. It was good.

Towards the end of this adventure, the melt down had begun with the littlest one, so there was a feeling of frenzy to get back to home base. Lo and behold, there was a train, parked, or nearly parked across the "short cut" to get back to the house. So we do a U and zoom down to the nearest crossing, and we have about 30 seconds to cross the tracks, but this car in front of us seemed rooted to the spot. The cacophony of screams whines and cries was nearing a crescendo when Sis says, "WHY WON'T SHE MOVE??" and I say, "Because she's a TURD!!" The following exchange could be heard above the din between Abby and her cousin:
Abby: "Hee hee, did you hear my mom say 'turd?'"
Eden: "What is a turd?"
Abby: "It's a tiny green slimy thing that comes out of a frog's butt. At least that's what my Uncy Duncy says. Personally, I think it's just little pooplets."

Alas, all of the young innocent children in the minivan are now somewhat versed in the "ins and outs" of life. Bwah.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Dude. Seriously, I cannot believe the level/s of technical difficulties that I have experienced in the past month. If you are acquainted with me via the Internet, real life, over the phone, or really in any way at all, you will know that I have had multiple failures of the technical nature. Of course, I really cannot even complain about Hotmail locking me out because ---- I was warned, by multiple people, "Get G-Mail" they said, "You won't regret it..." "Trust me. Hotmail sucks, you'll be sorry..." Many people, many different comments, same content. And yet, I was accused of... "being involved in illegal activities" via hotmail. Nice. What do they think I was doing? Oh. Yeah. I forgot about my online strip tease business, and my pyramid scheme business, and my Spam Business, because God knows there is so much money in spamming and so many people are such dumb asses to click on the link because "your Paypal account has been locked..." Puh-leez. duh.

Hotmail aside, my computer also crashed. My new Moto-Q crashed. Maybe I played a little too much "bubble breaker." Who knows? And the latest? This is a new one. Sprint turned off my phone number today. Yeah. They TURNED OFF MY PHONE NUMBER. I've had this phone number 5 or 6 years, and today, they decided to turn it off.

So, this age is supposed to be so convenient. I'm thinking it might just be easier to move to the Arctic Circle, forget about cell phones, the Internet, computers, e-mail, and get back to nature? nah. ha.

A Chicken Life Partner?

Ok, I know that to most, chickens are quite boring, but I find their mindless stupidity quite entertaining. Recently, I had two hens decide to "go broody" (want to become moms) at the same time, so I set their eggs on the exact same day, knowing that all of their offspring would hatch within hours of each other. Weeks passed, and hatch day arrived. One lucky hen hatched out 9 fluff-balls, and the other only hatched 2. They both led their little broods down into the chicken house and proceeded to teach them that they are indeed chickens, and how to act as such. A minor problem developed in that none of the chicks really knew which one was their mother, and would all scurry over to whichever hen was clucking "Come see this." That night, one of the hens flew up to the 2nd story nest for bed, while the other hen stayed on the ground with the chicks. Next morning, both hens arose and continued to dual-mother the 11 chicks together. This pattern developed into quite the alternative chicken lifestyle in which we have the true "hen" chicken and the nifty addition of the "chicken life partner" or "assistant hen." Hen sleeps on the ground with the chicks, and takes care of them all night in true mothering fashion while the Assistant Hen sleeps in a toasty nest all by herself - undisturbed. Each morning, Assistant Hen, flies down to help raise the chicks. Aside from fertilization, Rooster is completely out of the picture.

Under Pressure

Some people, who will remain nameless have been giving me grief about not posting to my blog. Here we go, I'll try to make this as painless as possible for the readers. I ran good for a month or so after my 1/2, and then became injured, so I really haven't been in the running mindset. I did start back running 2 weeks ago, and I THINK we have figured out the reason for my little injuries, so hoping to just move forward w/o injuries now. So actually this last one wasn't a little injury, but that's a long story.

During the time that I had off running I did many things such as be lazy, get out of shape, and also have started a new store online: http://hyenacart.com/Who/index.php?c=0&p=32819 as a means to sell my creations. I had no idea how much time it consumed to create a website, and at the same time try to make things to sell! WOW, just a perfect running diversion, if you ask me. But it's been a ton of fun. :)

Thank goodness school is almost over. Just watch, in August I will be saying, "Geez, I can't wait for school to start."

In three short weeks, I'll be headed to Denver for three short weeks. It's awesome that the kids are old enough to go and enjoy a trip like this as well as actually go do some sight seeing without any bottles, bare boobage, milky shirts, diapers, pee pee pants, multiple mad rushes to the bathroom, the dismal discovery of NO EXTRA CLOTHES, sleep deprivation, the list goes on. The new list includes: deceitfulness, blatant disobedience, sullenness, self pity fits, refusal to eat what's in front of them, you get the picture. Hmmm. It just doesn't seem fair to list someones faults without posting a picture so you can see how beautiful they are and trust me to say that they are wonderful kind-hearted PEOPLE too. ;)


My kids. :)

Success in Texas

Gosh, looking back, it has been a long time since I have posted anything and anyone who was reading this blog has probably given up on any new posts.

We, The Lantz Clan, have just returned from a trip to Texas which was successful on many fronts. The family had plenty of fun going to visit Brad's friend, Joey, and all made new friends with his lovely family.

While there, we visited the Alamo which for me was just too cool, having seen the old movie so many times I have lost count. We also visited the River Walk in downtown San Antonio, which was just as cool, and I will attempt to post a picture.

We arrived at Joey's house on Thursday night, spent Friday at his house, Saturday in San Antonio, and then left for Austin and the big race for which I have been preparing. Both Austin and San Antonio are just great places, and I would love to have more time to go back.

Before I left, I printed out all pertinent information to the half marathon, maps to the hotel, the race map, a map to RunTex where I was to pick up my packet, etc., but failed to bring said papers with me! How annoying! I am such a list person, and tried to tell myself that I did not need a list for this trip. Boy was I wrong. Much to my chagrin, I also forgot swimsuits and the hotel had a hot tub. Here is a pic of the 3M Half Marathon goody bag, I know you will all be jealous:

To my relief, Joey was kind enough to let me use his Internet access and write down phone numbers and directions to my destinations, so all was not lost and it was beginning to look like I may still be able to run my race.

Thursday and Friday, I will say that my runs did not feel good. I did not feel like a fast person at all. I think my pace for those runs were in the 9:15-9:20 range as I did not push it at all, but I just felt so tired and slow and stiff. The battle of the negativity was on. Every little demon of negative thought I discarded and replaced with a different though --- or a song --- or a glass of wine ---- or just about any distraction I could think of that would keep me from talking myself out of a good race.

Our plan once in Austin was to pick up the packet, and then for Brad to drop me off at the hotel to put my feet up and then take the kids to do something that they would enjoy. Instead we ended up going to REI and a bookstore. Ha. It was actually fine with me because a race to me feels like such a self-serving event, and there are all manners of feelings of guilt associated therein as a mom, so I did enjoy just spending that time with my family. Once we got to the hotel, I did lay out my race stuff, make sure I had chip, bib and pins, socks, sport bra, shoes, gloves and shorts. I am a minimalist. After this I did lay down on the bed and put my feet up. I kept my phone handy for a few text messages coming in.

After a great dinner with a bunch of really cool people who I have only ever met online, I was ready to just crash, as the weekend had already been pretty full and taxing, so after a hot bath I was a goner. I never sleep well the night before a race, it is not going to happen. I had not really gotten any quality sleep in 4 days, but once again just trying to ignore the negatives in the matter, and focus on the positives, which all seemed to boil down to one thing - I was trained.

It was quite unusual but the morning of the race dawned 42 degrees, quite chilly, but I maintained that I would only run in a sport bra and shorts. It was a good choice. I never even felt the cold, and by mile 2 I was flying down those hills just enjoying the breeze. I was thankful for the gloves, and thankful for not wearing anything that I had to take off and carry or worry about. It was just me and the road, and running, and that's how I like it. The first mile was congested and slow, but the next 3 miles flew by and before I knew it I was halfway through. There were about 3 times that I briefly had thoughts that I couldn't hold the pace and I should just slow down, but I tried my best to dispel them and just keep moving. I was quite surprised to find a pretty good uphill at mile 10 and it was a difficult thing mentally. Everything I had heard was that the last 4 miles were flying downhill. There is nothing for it though, it's you and the course. You really can't depend on what you hear, you have to just use it as a gauge. The last time that I had a PR race, my last 2 miles were close to 7:00 flat, but I just did not have that in me this go-round. I suppose I wasted those on the 6:45 5th mile, and the 7:06 8th mile, but that is in the history books now. It never ceases to amaze me how long you can see the finish line clock and how slowly the seconds tick by as you come down the chute. I remember seeing the clock at 1:34:XX and thinking it was so cool, but it was 1:36:15 gun time by the time I crossed, and 1:35:49 chip time. A great race for me, though I know I could have run faster last Spring. This is the first 1/2 marathon in which I did not run a single split over 8:00.

I'm happy. I did not have any emotional fits because it wasn't a huge surprise according to my fitness, but I am happy to have returned to this place and feel confident that 2008 will bring great things in the running aspect and fond family memories.

Just Stuff

Well I am back to the Internet world after a great visit with my sistah and all of her little people. ha. We looked at many houses, ate many cookies, drank much tea, and laughed over kid-sayings. Good times.

Ran 70:00 easy today, and was followed by a couple of dogs. I can't stand being followed by dogs. It drives me nutso. Anyway, it was a very comfortable run, although not fast at all. I guess I do not care very much because I have 2 doubles coming up on Thurs. and Fri., as well as plenty of tempo work to do on Saturday. Time enough for the hard stuff. I like to enjoy the easy stuff. In the mean time I'll try to come up with something worth reading.

Ewwwwwwwww

Nasty day out there. When I left to run, it was 52 degrees, not bad, but very humid. Danielle went with me and we took off to warm up, and I didn't really feel like it was going to be a good day, so I was surprised to start off at a 7:20 pace and it felt comfortable, so I stayed with it. Unfortunatlely, during the run, the sun came out and the temps shot up about 15 degrees, retaining our 100% humidity, or 400%, whatever it was. So I ended up with a 7:32 pace for the 40:00 tempo run, a little dissapointing, but I feel that if it hadn't been so humid I would have done much better. So overall, still not a terrible run, but then again, I was so much faster the beginning of the year, so that is still somewhat frustrating for me.. Not a very positive post, eh?

In other news, Ethan finally tested his boundaries enough to find out what happens in the Lantz home when disrespect happens. He made fun of his teacher today, so he has been pretty much grounded all night and he received a spanking and was required to write his teacher an apology note. He's grounded to his room, poor kid, I feel bad for him, but I just don't want him to grow up to be disrespectful, and hopefully he will remember this for some time.