did i tell you that i've been training again for the danskin triathlon in july? i'd actually almost decided not to do it - too many projects on my plate, especially gifts to knit! - but then my friend katherine called me up to tell me that she had signed up and that she was flying in from out of state to do it with me! nothing like a little peer pressure to get one back into shape.
so i've been reading a book by sally edwards, the amazing woman who started the danskin triathlons and completed more than a dozen ironmans. she talks about using buzzwords to motivate you throughout training and through the race. i've heard this before from her - she stands at the starting line at the danskin and gives every wave a different word to think about throughout the swim/bike/run. it's usually motivational words like "power" "strength" etc. in her book she talks about two different words: allez and faito. the french shouted "allez" at the top of their lungs as they cheered her through the triathlon in nice. the japanese shouted "faito" as she ran the ironman in japan. here's her description of their definition:
"Allez means "let's go." And "go," for the French, is a single word that combines two powerful English words, that all athletes ... instinctively use - "go" and "power."
Faito ... means "to fight." "To fight" to a Japanese means to fight against that inner part of yourself that prevents you from doing your best.
Now I use allez whenever I need a boost and faito whenever I'm working against myself."
i really like that description of "faito." i feel like my worst enemy during training is my own mental block. i chant that a lot while doing the slow uphill bike, or trying to get going the first few hundred yards of the run after the bike.
this morning adam and i drove up to wisconsin and biked the danskin course. not too bad - it felt a lot better this time, since the last time i did it i was trying to save energy for the run since i wasn't sure i'd be able to finish. we then ran around the lake, which is probably a touch under 2 miles. it was really tough to get going, but around halfway around, i got that fabled "second wind." it truly was an endorphin surge. wow, i thought, this is what it's all about. this is why people get addicted to triathlons.
6.22.2008
a lovely evening
last night boo stayed with his uncle/aunt/cousin nico and gave us a chance for some "quality time. " we drove up to lake geneva and took a boat tour around the lake. the tour was pretty much a listing of the rich and famous who live along the shoreline - the wrigley family, the maytag family, etc. the water was glorious. afterwards we splurged on the tasting menu at the Ristaurante Brissagio at the grand geneva hotel, thanks to an anniversary present from r/t long ago. the courses:
- antipasto: prosciutto, olives and roasted peppers, candied fruit paired with pecorino chunks
- insalata caprese: bufala mozzarella flown in from italy! so flavorful and slighly squishy on the inside
- guitar string spaghetti with lobster in a pecorino sauce - the highlight of the evening, i could easily have eaten platefuls of this
- wild sea bass with sweet potato puree - separately, these two items were unremarkable (though well cooked); together, they were divine.
- lamb chops from a nearby farm
- flourless chocolate cake and the best tiramisu we've had
adam had a wine flight with perfectly paired wines. it started with a soave, a wine i haven't heard of, very mellow and friendly. the last was a moscato that was divine, almost an ambrosia. i shall have to call to get the name of it.
- antipasto: prosciutto, olives and roasted peppers, candied fruit paired with pecorino chunks
- insalata caprese: bufala mozzarella flown in from italy! so flavorful and slighly squishy on the inside
- guitar string spaghetti with lobster in a pecorino sauce - the highlight of the evening, i could easily have eaten platefuls of this
- wild sea bass with sweet potato puree - separately, these two items were unremarkable (though well cooked); together, they were divine.
- lamb chops from a nearby farm
- flourless chocolate cake and the best tiramisu we've had
adam had a wine flight with perfectly paired wines. it started with a soave, a wine i haven't heard of, very mellow and friendly. the last was a moscato that was divine, almost an ambrosia. i shall have to call to get the name of it.
6.17.2008
just messing around
just some fun pics from the last week or so ...... fun with dry ice
... fun grilling next to daddy... fun with stickers!
6.15.2008
waterlogged
it was a weekend full of water. storms flooded the nearby river, so no biking on the trail for a while. i am so thankful that boo doesn't seem to be scared of the thunder, because we've been having a lot of it.
boo had his first swim lesson at the local aquatic center. at first he did not want to go in the water at all. it might have been a bit chilly - mid 60s this morning! beautiful for playing outside but not necessariliy in the water. when i picked him up and carried him, he clung to me with the tenacity of a barnacle, even in 2 foot deep water. so funny too, because he is a completely different creature in the bathtub at home. in our deep tub he blows bubbles, floats on his back, walks on his hands (he calls this the "shark swim" when on his belly and "octopus swim" when on his back).
just as i was thinking it was going to be a very long half hour and a long summer of saturday mornings, the teachers started jumping up and down like frogs, which broke his endless repetition of "no no no" and put a smile on his face. the turning point was when they sang "wheels on the bus." he didn't do the bubble blowing (which is what the motors on the bus do) but he did it later at home. he loved jumping into the pool and later loved walking through the little fountains and going down the kiddie slide. i think he just might be willing to return.
this morning was my open water swim clinic from mary meyer life fitness. i almost didn't think it was going to happen because of thunderstorms here; but at the exact same time, it was crystal clear just 20 minutes north where the lake was. this lake michigan weather is funky.
i went to the clinic last year and it was inspiring and really helpful. mary meyer talked about how it is totally normal to panic when you go into the open water, and said that she herself panics every time, and always has to talk herself down ("okay, you can't panic right now, there are 50 people watching you during this swim clinic"). good to know.
one of her partners (who has swum a race on every continent, and i think has won the english channel swim) talked about always finding the positive. if you get kicked in the face and your goggles fall off, tell yourself, thank god that i have vision so that i can appreciate this. when she was swimming the english channel a chunk of her hair got loose from her cap and fell into her face during every breath she took for the remaining hours of the swim. she thought to herself, thank god i have hair so that it could do this to me. thank god i'm healthy and not going through chemo at the moment and still have hair. (note that one person who did the danskin tri was going through chemo at the same time! now that's strength!) thank god i have the strength to swim for this length of time so that it could do this for several hours. a good illustration of not dwelling on the negative, because something will happen, and it will just bring you down.
this year i skipped the intro lecture and went with the "advanced" group - which might have been a bit much for me, but was definitely a challenge. there was only one other woman and the instructor. we practiced a couple of beach starts - man was the water cold (it was mid-60s today). then we swam to the middle of the lake and worked on sighting and our stroke. eek! i was out of breath and not at all thinking about form. and my sighting needs a lot of work. i end up doing a few freestyle then switching to breaststroke to sight. i really need to work on rotation and lengthening my stroke. yet i have just one more week of swimming and biking before we start travelling for 2 weeks, and i won't really be able to swim/bike very well.
boo had his first swim lesson at the local aquatic center. at first he did not want to go in the water at all. it might have been a bit chilly - mid 60s this morning! beautiful for playing outside but not necessariliy in the water. when i picked him up and carried him, he clung to me with the tenacity of a barnacle, even in 2 foot deep water. so funny too, because he is a completely different creature in the bathtub at home. in our deep tub he blows bubbles, floats on his back, walks on his hands (he calls this the "shark swim" when on his belly and "octopus swim" when on his back).
just as i was thinking it was going to be a very long half hour and a long summer of saturday mornings, the teachers started jumping up and down like frogs, which broke his endless repetition of "no no no" and put a smile on his face. the turning point was when they sang "wheels on the bus." he didn't do the bubble blowing (which is what the motors on the bus do) but he did it later at home. he loved jumping into the pool and later loved walking through the little fountains and going down the kiddie slide. i think he just might be willing to return.
this morning was my open water swim clinic from mary meyer life fitness. i almost didn't think it was going to happen because of thunderstorms here; but at the exact same time, it was crystal clear just 20 minutes north where the lake was. this lake michigan weather is funky.
i went to the clinic last year and it was inspiring and really helpful. mary meyer talked about how it is totally normal to panic when you go into the open water, and said that she herself panics every time, and always has to talk herself down ("okay, you can't panic right now, there are 50 people watching you during this swim clinic"). good to know.
one of her partners (who has swum a race on every continent, and i think has won the english channel swim) talked about always finding the positive. if you get kicked in the face and your goggles fall off, tell yourself, thank god that i have vision so that i can appreciate this. when she was swimming the english channel a chunk of her hair got loose from her cap and fell into her face during every breath she took for the remaining hours of the swim. she thought to herself, thank god i have hair so that it could do this to me. thank god i'm healthy and not going through chemo at the moment and still have hair. (note that one person who did the danskin tri was going through chemo at the same time! now that's strength!) thank god i have the strength to swim for this length of time so that it could do this for several hours. a good illustration of not dwelling on the negative, because something will happen, and it will just bring you down.
this year i skipped the intro lecture and went with the "advanced" group - which might have been a bit much for me, but was definitely a challenge. there was only one other woman and the instructor. we practiced a couple of beach starts - man was the water cold (it was mid-60s today). then we swam to the middle of the lake and worked on sighting and our stroke. eek! i was out of breath and not at all thinking about form. and my sighting needs a lot of work. i end up doing a few freestyle then switching to breaststroke to sight. i really need to work on rotation and lengthening my stroke. yet i have just one more week of swimming and biking before we start travelling for 2 weeks, and i won't really be able to swim/bike very well.
6.13.2008
skunk!
aagghh! our house and dog smell like skunk! when we let dixie back in from her evening sojourn last night, DH was afraid that something was burning (namely, our air conditioning unit, because it recently fried internally and we had to replace the motor). because fresh skunk actually doesn't smell like what you smell on the roads. it smells like burnt rubber or burnt plastic. we didn't realize this until dixie had run upstairs and was rubbing her nose on our carpet ... aaagghhh!
so she got a bath for a solid half hour last night. along with the dog shampoo we used tomato soup (we didn't have any juice), diluted vinegar, and a mix of hydrogen peroxide / baking soda / dawn in water. she actually smells pretty good now except for the front of her left ear, which still smells like skunk. everything else smells like soap - it doesn't even smell like wet dog! (which is a little scary but it's better than skunk)
i couldn't sleep well last night because our room smelled like skunk, despite covering the carpet with cleaner, spraying febreze everywhere, and making dixie sleep in the garage. so i went to walmart at 6am and got a ton of tomato juice and several other things, and gave her another bath. her ear still smells. she's banished outside and has been whining like crazy, until i gave her a gigantic rawhide bone that i've been saving for just this purpose. good thing it rained outside last night so the smell is less pungent.
so now i'm working on the house. this is what i'm doing:
- sprayed carpet cleaner all over the top floor and vacuumed
- set out bowls of baking soda and coffee granules everywhere
- sprayed ozium everywhere (an air sanitizer i read about on the internet)
- load of laundry in progress
- baking cinnamon / nutmeg / ginger (mostly just cinnamon) at 250 in the oven
i called the vet this morning and he recommended: dropping some mineral oil in her eye to protect it, then washing alternately with dog shampoo, lemon juice and massengale douche daily for the next few days. back to the store.
so she got a bath for a solid half hour last night. along with the dog shampoo we used tomato soup (we didn't have any juice), diluted vinegar, and a mix of hydrogen peroxide / baking soda / dawn in water. she actually smells pretty good now except for the front of her left ear, which still smells like skunk. everything else smells like soap - it doesn't even smell like wet dog! (which is a little scary but it's better than skunk)
i couldn't sleep well last night because our room smelled like skunk, despite covering the carpet with cleaner, spraying febreze everywhere, and making dixie sleep in the garage. so i went to walmart at 6am and got a ton of tomato juice and several other things, and gave her another bath. her ear still smells. she's banished outside and has been whining like crazy, until i gave her a gigantic rawhide bone that i've been saving for just this purpose. good thing it rained outside last night so the smell is less pungent.
so now i'm working on the house. this is what i'm doing:
- sprayed carpet cleaner all over the top floor and vacuumed
- set out bowls of baking soda and coffee granules everywhere
- sprayed ozium everywhere (an air sanitizer i read about on the internet)
- load of laundry in progress
- baking cinnamon / nutmeg / ginger (mostly just cinnamon) at 250 in the oven
i called the vet this morning and he recommended: dropping some mineral oil in her eye to protect it, then washing alternately with dog shampoo, lemon juice and massengale douche daily for the next few days. back to the store.
6.10.2008
composting for wimps
i've been a wimp about starting a compost pile ... i've wanted to compost forever, because we eat a ton of veggies and i throw a ton of good compostable food scraps away. however, i am such a weenie when it comes to worms and bugs, which usually comes with the territory - especially when turning the compost. yech.
so look what came in the mail today ... the naturemill indoor composter! we're keeping it in the garage, just outside the door from the mudroom. i got it started (needs 2 cups of outside dirt, 2 cups of sawdust pellets, and about 10ish cups of compostable stuff) and it needs to percolate for a week; after that, i can add food scraps at will. supposedly it churns out compost in just 2 weeks. i'm not particularly anxious about that - i'm a bit worried that dixie will eat it, but i'll cross that bridge when i come to it - so i can wait a little longer. but it will be great for the garden in the fall! i'm so excited!
what's that word for environmentalist yuppies? i just googled it, and it says "guppie." but that word is also used to refer to gay yuppies. hm, any slang experts out there?
belated spring
finally, spring is here! after about a month straight of rain. we were supposed to get our fence painted back in april but the guy needs 3 straight days without rain. poor guy hasn't been able to do it yet!
here are some pictures from early spring. boo likes to help water the garden. here he is relaxing with daddy on our new cushions (which cost as much as the chairs! why do they do that?) and clinking glasses.
boo is starting to reason more visibly. the other day
i put him in a time out because he wouldn't let me feed dixie, for some reason. after the time out he was able to articulate why he was in time out, and when i asked him "why do we need to feed dixie?" he answered "because it will make her feel better."he tried on some adorable mini-keen sandals that match mommy's but they are too big yet and gave him a blister! (bad mommy!) he calls it his "bump" and it's obviously not an innocuous feeling. last night he asked, "can we take the bump
outside and get rid of it?"
6.09.2008
city shopper
today was my boo-free day with the sitter ... didn't get to take full advantage of it because of morning thunderstorms (was going to go on a long bike ride). ran a ton of errands, though. one of my fun finds was at the container store - found a bag that i can carry to the mall to use instead of those durned plastic bags. been feeling a tiny bit style-conscious carrying my reusable grocery bags in the mall, so this will be a nice improvement. on sale, too! the reisenthel city shopper.
6.07.2008
phantom lights
when we moved in i bought two neat stone lamps from marshalls ($150 lamps for $25!) and plugged it into these outlet plugs that i got from ebay that turn any lamp into a touch lamp - that is, a lamp that you can just touch anywhere and it will turn off and on. i don't know if it's the plugs or if it's our outlet or the lamps or if our bedroom is haunted, but these lights do strange things.
sometimes they turn on randomly. especially during thunderstorms. (which is why i'm posting now, because there's a big one waging on right now) one big thunderclap and the lamps turn on. but they sometimes turn on without any obvious impetus - i'll wake up in the middle of the night and my lamp will be on.
or sometimes i'll touch my lamp, and adam's nightstand lamp will turn on instead. they're not even plugged into the same plug. they are in the same outlet, though i still don't see how that would make this happen. i'll turn my lamp off, and adam's will turn on. sometimes, not always.
or sometimes i'll turn on the ceiling fan or the overhead light (which shouldn't be connected to the outlet at all) and one or both lamps will turn on.
spooky!
i'm just glad our air conditioner works now. it broke on friday and a guy was able to come fix it today. we're a thousand bucks poorer (OUCH) but fifteen degrees cooler.
sometimes they turn on randomly. especially during thunderstorms. (which is why i'm posting now, because there's a big one waging on right now) one big thunderclap and the lamps turn on. but they sometimes turn on without any obvious impetus - i'll wake up in the middle of the night and my lamp will be on.
or sometimes i'll touch my lamp, and adam's nightstand lamp will turn on instead. they're not even plugged into the same plug. they are in the same outlet, though i still don't see how that would make this happen. i'll turn my lamp off, and adam's will turn on. sometimes, not always.
or sometimes i'll turn on the ceiling fan or the overhead light (which shouldn't be connected to the outlet at all) and one or both lamps will turn on.
spooky!
i'm just glad our air conditioner works now. it broke on friday and a guy was able to come fix it today. we're a thousand bucks poorer (OUCH) but fifteen degrees cooler.
6.03.2008
cousins visit
from madison! drove down for the weekend and brought packer brats (with green and yellow peppers inside). we packed into the minivan and drove to the aquarium. 
headed straight for the wild reef this time - almost empty on a sunday morning!
boo loved the sharks and the stingrays. enjoyed the dolphin show a lot more this time - every time they jumped, he'd laugh and laugh. nothing better than a 2 year old engulfed in gales of laughter.
afterwards they ran around in a field outside. 
perfect gorgeous day, couldn't have asked for better weather. the sun was so bright boo even kept his sunglasses on for the first time ever.
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