indoctrinate early

every family needs to have words to live by, a proclamataion to hold them together and to unify them. at the casa de simpson, we have such a proclamation.

1. we indoctrinate early
2. we don't pay full price.
3. we don't cheer for florida, utah or tennessee, which brings us to sublaw 3.1. we don't wear orange and blue together and we make a concerted effort to wear black and red together.
4. we don't like cats.
5. the name ronald reagan is spoken in hushed, reverent tones.
6. we take halloween seriously.

i'm in charge of costumes:



thomas is in charge of pumpkins:

BATMOM-

avenger of messes,

lightning quick folder of laundry,

human receptacle of rejected lunches, cast-off jackets, socks and partially-licked candy.

superchic machine washable superhero uniform known for it's bionic stretchy waist band to hold in not so bionic mom stomach, booger and snot proof cape, arch supportive sneaks for leaping over incredible messes, and classy/flashy truth seeking mask that burns through lying children's souls.

be afraid. be very afraid.

i like the way i work it, no diggity

i cry a lot. A LOT. more than your average bear.
saturday, i ran in the kansas city marathon, the half-marathon portion. it was great. i thoroughly enjoyed getting up earlier than anyone else on earth to run on saturday mornings. i thoroughly enjoyed talking about running and my practice courses. i thoroughly enjoyed carb-loading. and milk chocolate chip loading. (did you know i have a chocolate chip eating compulsion? my hand is permanently cupped because of how often i am holding a personal stash of chocolate chips. it's bad. crazy bad. kanye west crazy bad.) and sometimes when i am running, i will tear up. i just love it. i love the feeling of freedom from running and i can't hold my emotions in.

the night before the race, i teared up whilst carb-loading. i was that excited. the morning of, i let a few tears slip out as i read the love/encouragement note from thomas. i pretended that i had allergies when i got into my car and heard that thomas had queued up one of my all time favorite running songs, "we run" by sugarland.

i got misty when i saw that this man had pulled his old letterman's jacket out to wear to the race so that i could more easily spot him in the throngs of people.

my vision was completely blurred because i saw this homeless looking person waiting for me at the finish line. (apparently, once you move to las vegas you forget how cold it is when you come back to visit kansas city and have nothing to wear but your brother's castoffs. never mind that we are having an unusually cold october.)

i cried when i saw my dad. it meant the world to me to see him there.

this was my running crew. we all rode to the race together and it was so great be a part of this group. i cried unashamedly when we said a group pre-race prayer. it's so nice to have friends you can pray with.

i had a fantastic time running MOST of this race. it was a real treat to run with a friend for a good part of it. carie and i matched paces for a good portion. she has a great stride and i could feel her pulling me with her. it's really nice to rely on someone else's strength. then i hit mile 8. and could tell that i was needed to refuel a touch. i slowed for some gatorade and then when i was trying to speed up again, i felt myself hit a wall. the dreaded wall!!! i should have just said to heck with electrolytes and kept going. it was terrible. my beautiful pace was gone. i was crushed. i cried out of sadness for the first time that day. my run turned ugly. like a robot dancing in glue. i was so angry that i wasn't going to reach my goal of finishing in under 2 hours.
but i kept on keeping on.
i eventually sped up a little. but i mostly just concentrated on finishing.

the effort is what is important. that i really tried.

practice makes permanent.

i can do hard things.

i tried to believe all that.

and i finished. i was a touch disappointed when i crossed at 2 hours 1 minutes 20 seconds. but happy to be done. i was feeling fine. i cheered other runners on. i enjoyed the race atmosphere.

i ate my snacks and guzzled my water. then i realized that i was cold. REALLY COLD. it was still only about 9am and the weather was in the 40s. i was wearing my cold weather compression pants but just a stretchy long sleeve t-shirt. and i sweated my guts out whilst running. my shirt was soaked and i was freezing. and then i didn't feel so well. then i felt really bad.

how bad? this bad:
this picture isn't a completely accurate representation of my illness as i would never wear such awful shorts and only dreamt of throwing up. that dream evaded me. but i was sick. blue lips. uncontrollable full body shaking. doubled over. that sort of crazy feeling where sentences are hard to form and you are wondering why there is a dancing gnome standing next to you. and i don't really remember the drive home. when i got home(how did i get home? i think thomas was involved. my hero. i do recall dumping a bottle of gatorade on my seat.) i took that awful frozen shirt off and crawled into my bed and thought about girl's camp and how to avoid hypothermia. and then i tried not to cry. after about an hour i was okay. but now i am going to invest in a cold compression shirt to match my pants. i have learned my lesson about running around like a fool with no hat and only a light shirt in cold weather.
and then i got online to check my official finish time:

1:59:57

three precious seconds!
so i cried some more out of happiness!

ps- my darling sister was in town this weekend.

we celebrated a happy early heatherween!

she's the best. and the kindest. and the most loving. she's the good sister. the righteous sister. the elinor to my marianne dashwood. and i miss her terribly.

breaking news story

local husband gets wife's walmart request exactly right on first try! all while wrangling two small children in tow. on a saturday morning! and the crowd goes WILD! and the wife goes WILDER!

life in suburbia will never be the same. unbeknownst to the husband, all subsequent trips will require this same level of perfection.

craftastic

last thursday i completed only my second ever homemaking/enrichment night***/relief society meeting craft ever. and it is probably the FIRST craft that i have ever completed that i actually look forward to using again or even just looking at. my crafting skillz could best be described as craptastic and i have a closet bursting with half finished and super ugly crafts and projects. it's like the island of misfits toys, but with a pathetic partially sewn garment bag, unstuffed deflated halloween pumpkins, stacks of partially finished greeting cards that i misspelled things on, hideous glass globe christmas ornaments filled with ribbon(i taught that class), a family home evening board that i made upside down and several incomplete hostess aprons(i also "taught" that class). the only thing i ever successfully completed was this ceramic snowman statue. and the only reason that i have kept it around is because thomas likes it. i have always wanted to take a hammer to it. U-G-L-Y. it ain't got no alibi.

and now i think that i will take a hammer to it.

presenting my completed craft!!! a beaded necklace and bracelet set:

one more time??? okay!

so proud. i think i may try and make some more. just for funnsies. and so that i can see if i can actually finish it on my own. attaching the clasps required a lot of attention from someone who knew what they were doing. and that person was not me.

ps- i hadn't showered in these photos. so greasy good.

***am i the only one who will miss that name enrichment night??? i loved the sound of that. even if the only enriching that i got was from chitchatting with friends and meeting new people and enriching my waistline with goodies.