Mini Vacation

Since I took some time away from the Kids (my novel), I decided to delve into another project I've been meaning to do for awhile. When Eric and I first bought the house, I told him I would make a quilt for our bed. Our California King sized bed. So, it's three years later and I'm finally getting around to it.

I found this particular project in a quilting book. It's all based on triangles, 4 in X 4 in X 4 in. It said you could get this thing done in a weekend. What liars! It took me all week, working roughly 6 hours a day on it. I'm so ready to get back to writing now. I ran into some problems while I was attaching the quilted piece to the bed sheet. I bought a plain bed sheet from a thrift store for this project and didn't realized that the thing was all stretched out. So my triangles didn't line up right with the sheet. So a little nip and tuck, and from the top you can't tell anything is wrong. I'm not that worried, this quilt is solely for Eric's and my enjoyment. Quilting is not my forte and most of my quilt projects are far from perfect. It'll pass and that's ok with me.

During this sewing excursion, I read 1 book (326 pgs) and burned through 2 audio books, about 12.5 hrs each. Three books and a king sized quilt in a week. Man I rock!

Yard Work

After we came back from the reservoir, Eric and I tackled our side yard. we've been having a problem with weeds and un-wanted tree sprouts, so we decided to dig up the existing landscape fabric and replace it. Here is a picture sequence of how things went.

These are the before pictures. Looks pretty bad, huh?

We dug up the old mulch, the weeds and trimmed back as much of the tree sprouts as we could. What an ordeal. This process definitely took the most amount of time.

We leveled out the dirt area and laid down new landscape fabric.

We'll have pics of the finished project on Friday because we underestimated the amount of mulch we needed. Friday is pay day so we'll be buying more. So far, this project has taken us about four hours.

And here is the final result. We could probably use a few more bags of mulch, but it's good enough for now. Please ignore the tree sheddings. Ahhhh, the power of teamwork!

Bolder Boulder 2008

For twelve years, Eric has faithfully participated in the annual Memorial Day 10K run-the Bolder Boulder. The Bolder Boulder is the largest Memorial Day celebration in the nation. Over 51,000 runners/walkers registered to take on the course (6.2 miles). They were celebrating their 30th anniversary, so there was a lot of hoo-hay to go around.

On BB race day, we usually stay the night at Eric's parent's house, since they live 20 miles from Boulder. We wake up at 4:45am, so we can eat, pack a bag, and be out the door at 5:45 am. Then we drive in the cold and the dark to be at the runner drop off point (near the start line) around 6:30am. Since Eric is a fast guy, he usually runs in the AA wave, which starts about 7:00 am.

As the captain of the support team, I then drive to a parking spot near the finish line and bust my butt to get into the CU stadium, by the time Eric is expected to start. Half of the fun of being a spectator is to try and catch your loved one coming down the ramp into the stadium. I all my years of BB spectating, I've only missed Eric enter once. Yeah, I'm that good. (If you can blow up the pic, Eric is in blue and wearing a white visor. His race is #200).

We met up with some of Eric's blogging buddies then we headed to the outdoor expo where you receive free goodies (mostly food samples) and can visit with various sport related vendors.

This year, Eric had an ambitious goal. He was determined to beat Jesse's (his older brother) BB record he set when he was 17. A time of 37:38. Well, Eric beat it by 2 seconds. But 2 seconds is as good as two miles. He also set a new personal record, beating his old time by 5 minutes. Way to go Iron Eric!

Then we went home and slept for a good remainder of the day.

May God bless all the active military, veterans, and their families on this 2008 Memorial Day.

The Week of Sabotage

Here's the scoop. I have decided that I want the first draft of my novel completed by the middle of June. In order to do this, I have been diligently writing 2,000 words a day (about 7-10 pages)! Yeah it's crazy, and yeah it's super hard, but I've got to get this thing out of my head. The Kids (Vaila & Cenric) are driving me crazy.

So this is how the week of writing sabotage came to pass.

So, I wrote Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, totaling about 5,000 words. I really wasn't feeling the writing vibe, so I struggled all three days. I was getting so frustrated I just wanted to shut the computer off and say the heck with things (self sabotage). I went grocery shopping on Wednesday, the zoo on Thursday, Friday I spent all morning at the spa and Saturday I went to the reservoir with Eric, so he can practice his open water swim (all external sabotage).

Life is a saboteur to the things we have planned, but if we were not living, there would be nothing to plan for.

So, instead of beating myself up about not writing for 4+ days, I've been telling myself the Kids are on vacation at Grandma's house. They'll call when they're ready to come home.

Zipedee-Zoo-Da

Today I went to the Denver Zoo with my goddaughter, Ysabella, and her mom (my best friend) Stephanie. The weather couldn't make up it's mind. Do I want to be cool? Do I want to be hot? So we got an uneven mixture of both. We would have had the most perfect day, but all the school districts seemed to feel that this was a great day to go on an end-of-the-school-year field trip. The zoo was swarmed with hundreds of ill mannered, rambunctious, little delinquents. They were very draining.

Overall, we had a wonderful outing and I really enjoyed seeing some of my favorite animals. However, it must be mating season for some of these animals. We ran into Steph's sister-in-law and her son and she told us about an embarrassing situation were her son pointed out that the hippos were "hugging" each other. There was also a rhino trying to tear down the door to get to his female. Someone get that guy a cold shower.
Ysabella seemed to like the monkeys and the tropical fish exhibit.

The Tale of Eric in the Capital

I've been slacking. I forgot to mention, that Eric went to Washington, DC for a business trip, at the end of April. He was there for a library conference. Since the boy is still training for his IronMan event, he did some serious training, which included some serious sight seeing.

Eric's hotel was off Connecticut Ave and he ran all the way to Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Memorial. That's a 10 mile run-one way. He also paid a visit to the zoo, tomb of the unknown soldier, and to the memorials of Lincoln, World War II, and Roosevelt. And you can't go to DC without seeing the White House or the Washington monument, overlooking the Reflecting pool.

One day, Eric rented a bike and huffed it all the way to Mt. Vernon-a one way trip that will cost you 15 miles.

He had a lot of fun and really enjoyed his self tour of our nation's capital.

Mother's Day

Here is a quote about mothers that I find to be so true:

When God thought of mother, He must have laughed with satisfaction, and framed it quickly—so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power, and beauty, was the conception."-- Henry Ward Beecher
We celebrated mother's day in Westminster with Eric's fam. Eric and I gave Rita (his mom) with a pot full of fresh flowers. We actually went to a local nursery, perused through the mass of blooms and made our selection. Once we got home, we used the color and shape of the flowers to made a classic, original design. We placed in the pot spiked greens, white chrysanthemums, yellow snapdragons and purple alyssum. We certainly had a lot of fun with this project.

We had some flowers left over, so we lined our back patio with a splash of color. Ahh, I love spring.