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By kilax, September 29, 2017 7:23 am

99% of the time it’s easy for me to make decisions*. I either go with my gut, or have lots of good research to go off of (thanks, Steven!).

So when I do have to stop and think about something, and actually make a pro/con list? Ugh.

*Now, whether they’re good or bad…

Oh, Khaleesi (Khali). Sometimes she’s a bit of an escape artist. We opened the door this morning to tell the chipmunks to STFU, and Khali ran right out. She does this from time to time, and always (so far) comes back, but it still makes me a bit nervous. (Also, Snow makes me BONKERS when she’s trying to come back, because he usually chases her off when she gets close to the house. What a dick.)

Edited to add: Khali returned home just before noon.

I had to provide my social security number to someone at work today and I asked if I could call to give it to them. They were like “sure, whatever makes you comfortable.” Ha. Maybe I am odd in that I didn’t want it in an email? I mean, email should be secure. Should…

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By kilax, September 28, 2017 12:32 pm

• I forgot to mention in the post about my family visit that Snow was being a complete lovebug around my dad, which made me so happy! Data hates my parents, and Khali hides under the bed when they (everyone) visit(s), so it’s nice to have one cat be social and sweet.

• Besides expecting to find the MBP bracelet when my mom visits, she always leaves little notes for us to find too. I love it!

• Since we moved a year and a half ago, we only had two of our nice knives out of storage (and a block of steak/random knives). Last week we got the rest of our knives out and hung the magnetic rack up. I am thrilled to have those two knives off the counter (where they lived while they waited for the magnetic rack to arrive), and the rest of them out to use! Hurrah!

• I started a new position at work this week and had to get a mega laptop to run all the programs I’m using. It’s so much bigger than my old one that I have to move my watch way down my arm so it stops hitting the keyboard. Ha ha! Data had to check it out right away (and wasn’t impressed):

• As a result of starting a new position, I am completely brain-dead and exhausted from learning so much this week!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 148

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By kilax, September 27, 2017 6:42 am

We were hanging out in the living room Sunday night when Steven says to me “Did you just see something fall on Chewie?”

Chewie usually sits on the back of the loveseat

I didn’t see it. He went over to investigate, and returned with “umm, I think that’s for you.”

I grabbed a tissue, thinking his “that’s for you” meant it was a spider (Steven doesn’t deal with spiders).

But I didn’t need a tissue at all. It was just the MBP bracelet. It was wrapped around Chewie’s wrist, and the movement of it popping open made Steven think he saw something falling.

Ha ha ha. So, yes, three+ years* later, my mom, snister, and I are still pranking each other by hiding this bracelet somewhere when we see one another (see the story of how this started here).

I actually figured it was at my house, as my snister very recently pranked Mom with it, and I knew it would be fresh on Mom’s mind. I was searching for it after my parents left on Sunday. I’m happy it wasn’t somewhere completely obscure, and we found it quickly!

And now, it’s my turn. Muah ha ha.

*During the span of this three years, the original bracelet was lost. End of our fun, right? Not so fast… Dad bought a laptop bag at a garage sale, and lo and behold, what was randomly in the bottom of it? Another MBP bracelet. What are the odds?! I am not sure if this is the original (kind of looks like it, although an Alaska keychain was added to that one at some point), or the new one.

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By kilax, September 25, 2017 12:36 pm

What a quick weekend (said everyone, after every weekend, ever)! We were on the go from the moment my parents and maternal grandmother arrived Friday night.

We started with dinner at El Famous (a must!!!),

Everyone loves El Famous!

then did the indoor portion of the house tour for Grandma when we came back.

Dad checking out our Smith Machine

We had divided activities planned for Saturday, which is pretty common for my parents’ visits. Steven usually has a project planned for himself and my dad to work on, and my mom and I do our own thing (sometimes something productive, sometimes not, ha!).

This weekend’s featured project was burying the sump pump and gutter drain pipe. Awhile ago, Steven connected them and installed a corrugated pipe to get the water away from the house and toward the pond.

Connected pipes

Headed toward the pond

The plan for this weekend was to install a new pipe and bury it. We upgraded to a rigid, smoother pipe so it’ll be easier to snake it if something gets stuck in there.

Steven and Dad started their day early – they left to rent a trencher and pick up a few more parts for the project. While they were doing that, I gave Grandma the outdoor part of the house tour. Then Grandma, Mom, and I headed out to check out some garage sales and passed Steven and Dad on their way back to the house.

When we came back for lunch, they’d gotten so much done!

They had a lot of the trench dug, and the catch basin installed (not pictured). They took a break to eat with us, then got back to work. And we continued our adventures – on to the Jelly Belly Warehouse Tour, and to check out Lake Michigan.

Then we stopped home again, to change for church. Steven and Dad were starting to wrap things up at this point, and had to go get a few last pieces and return the trencher.

When we returned from church they were basically done for the day – they’d covered most of the pipe up, and built a little wall at the end to hold back the earth around the end of the pipe. We still have to cover that part, and take care of some extra dirt in the yard. But it’s nice to have that pipe buried and out of the way! It was a bit of an annoyance, and definitely an eyesore.

Everyone was tired Saturday night, especially Steven and Dad! It was a hard day for them, and hot out (in the 90s). We ate dinner, played a couple of rounds of cards and called it a night.

Dad and I went on a bike ride Sunday morning (yay!). When I came back, I made pancakes for everyone, and we hung out and played a few more rounds of cards before it was time for them to take off!

It felt like such a quick visit. I think packed days do that to me! Hopefully we can have a bit more downtime the next time they visit. And I definitely need to make sure I take a nap anytime I have guests arriving on a Friday (I wake up at 3:45 am on Fridays and staying up past 10:00 pm without a nap just ruins me for Saturday).

It was nice to have my Grandma see our house for the first time. Even though I was joking around about “Grandma Level Cleaning” I really do enjoy cleaning our home and have a great amount of pride about it. Steven and I both do. We love our little cottage in the woods, and we love having visitors!

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By kilax, September 24, 2017 6:38 pm

Highlight of the Week: A bike ride with Dad!

Monday | September 18, 2017: 10 m ride + teaching strength class
Indoor Ride Time: 38:23, Pace: 15.6 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, just sore butt
Strength: medicine balls and core/cardio circuit, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | September 19, 2017: 5 m run
Loc: VP Woods, Temp: 72°/70°, Time: 55:00, Pace: 11:00 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good BUT SO MAD ABOUT WORK
Wednesday | September 20, 2017: 4 m run (incl. 5×400)
Loc: Chicago Lakefront Path, Temp: 78°/84°, Time: 41:15, Pace: 10:19 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, just SO HOT
Thursday | September 21, 2017: rest (but so. much. cleaning.)
Friday | September 22, 2017: teaching strength class + 1,008 yd swim + 3 m run
Strength: Lebert Equalizer & Kettlebells, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, hot in the studio
Loc: FitNation, Time: 20:30, Pace: 2:02 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy then medium, Felt: good!
Loc: hood, Temp: 72°/79°, Time: 30:42, Pace: 10:14 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: hot, but great
Saturday | September 23, 2017: rest
Sunday | September 24, 2017: 17.2 m ride (w/Dad!)
Loc: around town loop, Temp: 67°/67°, Time: 1:17:18, Pace: 13.3 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, so much better than inside!

Notes:

• I haven’t been running much this month, and weather in the high 80s/low 90s this week sure isn’t making me want to. I hope we don’t see any more of that in October (I know we still have a few more days of it left here).
• I was sad on Saturday morning when I didn’t get to work out with Dad before the day started (we were all up too late to get up early, and he and Steven were starting an outside project early to beat the heat anyway), so I made sure we had plans for Sunday morning. We did a loop bike ride around my house and enjoyed chatting and riding on low traffic roads!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Starbucks giftcard giveaway! Random.org picked #3 (each entry and joke counted as two), which was Shelley!

Link to Training Week 413

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By kilax, September 22, 2017 8:09 am

… today is the first official day of fall and I am going to put out the few fall decorations I have, dammit!

Ha ha, yep, that’s it!

In celebration of everyone’s favorite season, I am giving away a $10 Starbucks giftcard, good for at least 1.75 PSLs (this is not sponsored, I bought it this morning with my own money).

$10 Starbucks Giftcard GIVEAWAY Rules

1. One reader will receive a prize.
2. REQUIRED to enter the giveaway: leave a comment telling me you want to enter.
3. BONUS extra entry: tell me a funny joke.
4. This giveaway is open until 12:00 PM CST on Sunday September 24. I will announce the winners on Sunday September 24 (in the training recap post).
5. Random.org will pick the the winner.
6. This giveaway is open to all readers, in all locations.

Comments (14)

By kilax, September 21, 2017 6:27 am

• I signed up for the Wisconsin Half Marathon this week (the race is May 5th). This will be my 10th year in a row running it! This note in registration about refunds cracked me up:

• I’m confused by the color of this pumpkin bath fizzy. Why is it blue?! And not pumpkin colored? Things that make you go hmm. Ha. I LOVE LOVE LOVE bath bombs. LOVE.

• I decided to get away from a watch face with a step count emphasis… but then I found this fishing cat watch face… and the cat only “catches” the entire fish if you meet your step goal. And it kind of looks like Khali (if she was wearing a space suit). So yeah, totally didn’t get away from a step based watch face, oops!

• I had a Grandma Level Cleaning inception moment Tuesday night – I talked to my Grandma on the phone while cleaning. Ha! Grandma is muchos excited about meeting the ducks during her visit this weekend (and told me what she’d be bringing to feed them). These two ducks showed up a few weeks ago. They like to hang out in the driveway (eyeroll). I don’t think we’ve seen them before which means… they need names!

Do you see Snow in the photo?

When I try to pull in to the driveway, or back out of the garage, I have to get out of the car and walk toward these guys so they’ll move – they are not afraid of the car

• Have any other local folks seen some of the Police Memorial Foundation dogs around Chicago? Here are the four I’ve seen:

• I love this photo of me and Xaarlin from Sunday’s race! (And am happy she pointed it out to me – I completely forgot to check the race photos!)

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 147

Comments (18)

By kilax, September 19, 2017 6:16 am

Ahh, adventures in Grandma Level Cleaning.

The last time I cleaned the outside and inside of the house windows, I spent all day working on it, and was really proud of my effort… until the sun shone through the windows the next day and I saw streaks. Everywhere. WAH.

So this time, I googled how to prevent that, and the tips on this site worked great – I used their 1:1 hot water to vinegar ratio, and wiped the squeegee after each use (duh, Kim, why didn’t you think of that before?). I also made sure to adjust the squeegee handle length depending on clearance around the bottom of the windows (so I could pull it all the way down continuously and not hit anything). I spent a long time working on it, and again, was proud of my efforts.

Until yesterday.

I was working in the office when I heard a loud thud and immediately knew what it was. Khali ran from the office toward the noise.

Snow rushed out of his house to see what was up.

Data used this opportunity to finish Khali’s breakfast (that’s not different from any other day though, ha).

Yep, a bird hit the window.

This actually happened several times last week, before I cleaned the windows, but this was the first time the bird stunned itself and I saw where it landed. And how convenient that it landed on Snow’s porch. Not.

I immediately took Snow inside, then made a little box for the bird to recuperate in. I read that after they hit a window, they need a safe, dark, warm space to chillax and let their heart rate come down.

So I put the bird in the box, let Snow back outside, and put the box in the bathroom and closed the door. After an hour, I took the box outside and opened the lid. The bird was breathing, but didn’t fly away.

I was trying to be calm, but I was worried the bird was seriously hurt (broken wing?) and I was going to have to find a way to put him out of his misery. Then spend the rest of the day crying in bed.

Luckily it didn’t come to that. Another hour later, I took him back out, opened the lid again, and lifted the towel he was on a bit, and off he went! Phew!

I was so relieved!

I’m hoping this doesn’t happen again, but it probably will since our windows are so damn clean. My snister was telling me about stickers you could put on your windows so the birds can see them better, but… I don’t want stickers on my windows. I’ll have to look in to another solution.

Comments (22)

By kilax, September 18, 2017 6:26 am

I’ve spectated the Fox Valley races (there’s a half marathon, twenty miler, and full marathon) in St. Charles, Illinois, a couple of times, but this was my first time being a racer! Xaarlin asked if I’d like to do a race for my birthday (back in July) and I said hells yes! I picked the Fox Valley Half Marathon because:

1. The course looked neat (it runs up and down the Fox River)
2. There was a chance the temperatures would be cool (HA! NOPE.)
3. And THIS MEDAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay… I really picked it for the medal!!!

Xaarlin signed us up and did packet pickup for both of us in the city, making it SUPER easy for me. Thanks so much, Xaarlin – spending this time with you was a wonderful gift!

We weren’t running the race with a specific finish time in mind, just a goal to have fun and chat. Because of that, it was very low stress for me – I looked up the start time, start area, where to park, and went from there.

Traffic and parking was easy, and I met Xaarlin and her husband just after 6:00 am. We did all the pre-race business and got in to the corrals a few minutes before the 7:00 am start, and our group took off around 7:09. It was 64°, 93% humidity, with a 62° dew point when we started.

Right after the start!

Right away I felt icky sweaty because of the humidity, but I have a personal race rule where I don’t complain about the weather (at least not until the end!) because it puts me in a bad head space. Instead I thought about how grateful I was that the beginning of the course was mostly shaded!

I hadn’t looked at the course map, so I was surprised how much of the first half was on city streets. I was thinking the course jumped on the trail next to the river right away, but that didn’t happen until five miles in. It’s a smart course design to keep the beginning of the race on the streets and spread out the runners so it never gets too congested. I can’t imagine trying to fit all of those people on a trail!

The beginning of the course was neat – I liked seeing the town and some gorgeous houses – but the trail we ran on stole the show. It was simply gorgeous. Some leaves had already started to change colors and gave us a visual glimpse of fall to enjoy. And provided us some much needed shade.

There are public access points to the trail, so we still had plenty of spectators while running on it. Xaarlin and I liked one woman’s mantra of “you’re bad ass and beautiful!” We also appreciated the spectators around mile 12 who gave us mimosas. Who knew that would taste so awesome at mile 12?!

I was feeling great until around mile 8 when I could tell the humidity was getting to me. For the last five miles, I walked the aid stations to fill up my water bottle and started drinking Gatorade. Despite feeling like I was wearing down, I knew I was still fine because I was talking Xaarlin’s ear off. Ha.

The course went back on the roads just after mile 11. We saw Xaarlin’s husband again (a huge thanks to him for spectating and hanging out with us before and after!),

Ha, I didn’t want to lift my arms all the way up in case I was hella smelly

did some silly loop through a park (because I really want to turn away from the course and do a loop to fit in mileage when I am so close to the finish…), then finished in 2:26:53! I had so much fun running with Xaarlin and catching up, but I was happy to stop and get out of the sun – I was roasting.

The race had a fantastic food setup – cakes, donuts, cookies, bananas, chips, pizza, freezer pops, soda, and water. I think there was a place to pick up beer too, and there were several other tents (massages, etc.). We didn’t explore too much because we wanted to be in the shade (and I really wanted to change out of my drenched clothes – as soon as I stopped running I had sweat dripping down my arms and legs, eww).

We met up with Xaarlin’s husband, took our post race picture,

and headed out to get some breakfast. I didn’t have much of an appetite right after the race, or at breakfast, or when I got home. My stomach felt a bit messed up from the humidity. Hopefully I don’t have too many more runs like that this year (one can dream).

But hopefully I DO have more opportunities to run with Xaarlin this year! I don’t run with friends very often and it’s such a treat when I do. It’s much easier to catch up when we’re together, rather than using email and text (duh, right?). Thank you, Xaarlin!

Comments Off on Training Week 413

By kilax, September 17, 2017 6:31 pm

Highlight of the Week: Running the Fox Valley Half Marathon with xaarlin!

Monday | September 11, 2017: teaching strength class
Strength: medicine balls and circuit, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fine
Tuesday | September 12, 2017: 7 m run
Loc: VP Woods, Temp: 71°/69°, Time: 1:20:05, Pace: 11:26 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: pissy about work
Wednesday | September 13, 2017: 2 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 68°/66°, Time: 19:45, Pace: 9:52 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Thursday | September 14, 2017: 3 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 73°/73°, Time: 32:55, Pace: 10:58 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: blah, annoyed with the heat
Friday | September 15, 2017: teaching strength class + 714 yd swim
Strength: medicine balls and core/cardio circuit, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: FitNation, Time: 16:12, Pace: 2:16 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fine, just bored
Saturday | September 16, 2017: 10 m ride + teaching fitness boxing
Indoor Bike Time: 40:44, Pace: 14.7 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fine, but sweaty and sore butt!
Strength: boxing & cardio/core with weights, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | September 17, 2017: Fox Valley Half Marathon w/xaarlin!!!
Loc: St Charles, Temp: 64°/70°, Time: 2:26:53, Pace: 11:06 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, challenged by the humidity

Notes:

• I am completely over: running in the shoulder (repeat complaint, I know), carrying a water bottle, and wearing my running belt. I’ll have to drive to run to take care of my first complaint, but if cooler weather arrives, I can get by without a water bottle (bad, I know), and I can start wearing things with pockets and put my phone in that instead of my belt! Just another month or so, ha.
• Yay, I was well enough to swim this week! When I was walking to the pool I started wondering when I signed up for my yearly pass and if I’d made it “worth” the cost (it’s a $6 drop in fee, and I wanted to go enough times that I was paying less than that with the pass)! I looked it up – I bought the pass October 28th last year and needed to use it 37 times to make even out. I’ve gone 56 times so far! Phew. Ha.
• I taught fitness boxing this week. I hadn’t taught it in almost two months because of our weekend classes break. One student was trying it for the first time, and enjoyed it, which is always nice for me to hear!
• On Sunday I ran a half marathon with xaarlin! It was a chance for us to chat and hang out and I had a great time. I’ll have a race report up this week!

Link to Training Week 412