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Talking Smart

Today was the Pewaukee Triathlon John, my Uncle Jim and my brother Tyler got together to do it as a team. John took the swimming leg, fitting as an ex-swimmer. Tyler took the running leg,  not so fitting, but he does run, although I can now say that after 5K he does not look happy about running. Uncle Jim did the bike, very fitting since a few years ago my Uncle took up biking and while we have teased him unmercifully all the while he logs in an amazing amount of miles! Uncle Jim came all the way from Michigan to join the team (named “Not a Prayer” by my Mother who signed them up, let that be a lesson for next time you cook up an idea at Christmas dinner and don’t act on it first!) and they placed a very respectable 35th in the team division. As Gramps would say “They beat somebody!”

Now I just need to go back a pull up this little comment by my Uncle after a post about the Pewaukee River Run back in April…. Here it is… “Looks like an old fat guy from Michigan is going to have to come over there and put them in their place.” and.. Oh look! A tweet that reads “Don’t make me come over there!”  You can check out River Run for the full story. But in short, my friend and I have been attempting to beat my Mom and her friend in a canoe race for several years and haven’t managed it yet.  Talking smart is as far as we’ve gotten, something Uncle Jim excels at as well.

I’m sure you can guess what happened today but here is my race synopsis anyway…

Luck of the draw the boys and my Mom ended up starting in the same heat. John (blue cap) and Mom(red cap) lined up together on the beach for the swim. John sped out in front of the heat with another ex-swimmer leaving the rest of the heat behind Mom included. But soon we saw John bounce face first off a buoy, a LARGE orange buoy and then careen off in the other direction. Result being that he seemed to swim at least half again as far as necessary. The trouble with being an ex-swimmer is we are all used to those cushy things like lines on the bottom of the pool and lane lines. He exited the water in style… …well,in style might not be the word for it, he realized after than he was the only person he saw there wearing an “old school Speedo”. To my husbands defense, he was a swimmer, they all wore Speedo’s. Anyways, my husband ran out of the water in his Speedo, and handed off to Uncle Jim (OK, so we actually never really call him Uncle Jim it’s Uncle Weasel or Uncle Mushroom, Ivy called him Weasel all day so lets go with that one) and Uncle Weasel took off on his bike… …as it turns out the team didn’t rate too high on the style meter no mater who you were watching!

Mom swam a very straight course, got far enough out of the main pack that she was swimming mostly by herself, ran in to the transition area, and took off her on bike. Lets also just say that my mom bikes on her red Schwinn Traveler that she got in college. I don’t know much anything about bikes but it seems that most triathletes (or Uncle Weasel) have things like clip in pedals, or baskets, or bikes that are super light weight,  not so much with the old Schwinn…

Waiting at the transition area we didn’t see much of the biking but reports from the road say that Mom caught Uncle Weasel around five miles, gave him an encouraging “Root hog or die!” and left him in her dust.  Mom ran into the transition area with her bike and left again with a smile (sort of) for her fans. Uncle Weasel does not run, not even in a race, but he moved as quick as he could over to Tyler who took off on the run five minutes behind his Mom. Even with the Weasel’s lack of running factored in we are still all scratching our heads as to why it took the two guys longer in transition than my Mom. I’m thinking it has something to do with Tyler never making it out of the locker room at swim practice in a reasonable time but I could be wrong.

The cheering section (plus John and the Weasel) all moved over to the finish line to see if Tyler, the-25-year-old-stays-in-shape-lifts-weights-runs-on-a-regular-basis-son, could eat up the time and catch his mom. Turns out no. Mom showed up just two minutes before Tyler did, still smiling, sort of. Tyler said only two people got by on the run both old ladies, and then amended “Not as old as you!” looking at his Mom.

My Mom won her age class in the Pewaukee Triathlon today, she was almost twenty minutes ahead of the next woman in her age class, and two minutes ahead of the smart talking Uncle Jim and his relay. That’s right, three of them doing the legs separately couldn’t manage to beat her. So let me just say, she’s fast and if you think you can beat her, go ahead a try. Oh and let me just throw in there that she sorta freakishly competitive so if you’d like a fighting chance you better not mention that you are gunning for her!

My Uncle Jim, did awesome for a self proclaimed “Old fat guy” doing the bike course in 15 minutes less than his predicted time, coming in just over the one hour mark! Maybe one day Uncle Jim will  beat his little sister but he’ll have to join the rest of us and stick to talking smart for the time being!

P.S. If you wake up really early and run a race, eat a huge brunch, then climb and trim some trees,  go ahead and take a nap on the couch…

…just be prepared for company!

Only In Wisconsin…

Yesterday we headed into Tomahawk  for Fourth of July festivities. The rain started just as the first firetrucks in the parade went by, fortunatly we had come prepared with umbrellas,

and rainjackets.

Even with the rain the parade was a success, Ivy collected a huge bag of candy and we got to see this:

We suspect it is only in a northern Wisconsin parade that you can see men riding barstools in cheese-head cowboy hats, carrying an American Flag.

Picture by Ivy

Ivy has been taking pictures with my camera lately. Most of them I won’t show you, partly because I’ve learned that Ivy height pictures are not my most flattering, and partly because you don’t need to see blurry kitchen appliances, Clara crawling out of the frame (those look just like mine) or random items in the yard. However I did like this one. It’s something about the pink toenail polish on my sad beat up deck boards (the other item in need of a paint job is my porch swing). Or maybe it has nothing to do with the picture and it’s just because she is so careful with the camera and tries so hard to take nice pictures.  Whatever the reason I like it, after all it sure beats all the pictures with a view up my nose!

Hurry Up, and Wait.

Sometimes I feel that my days need some sort of middle ground.

For instance this morning-

Hurry up:

get up way to early, get Clara back to sleep, go back to bed, wake up, breakfast, clean up breakfast, check on sheep, collect duck eggs, feed dogs, shower myself and both girls, comfort Clara after she falls and bites tongue, clean up blood, get dressed, get girls dressed, put Clara down for a nap, pack truck up, get everyone in truck

Wait:

drive truck, think about all the things I could be doing if I wasn’t driving, find my road is closed and think about more things I would rather be doing than driving even further

Hurry up:

go to feed mill, go to gas station, go to Dadant and Son’s bee supply, make an unscheduled  McDonalds  stop (how did it get to be after noon!?)

Wait:

drive home, think about more things I would like to be doing instead of driving

Hurry up:

get unloaded, feed Clara, let out dogs, clean up Clara, clean up Ivy who peed on herself while going to bathroom, put Ivy in shower, water plants, discover Clara ripped all her wipes to shreds, clean up wipes, help Ivy wipe off poop, finish watering plants, change diaper, change laundry, answer three phone calls that all come within a ten minute period, realize Ivy is out of the shower but the shower is still running, turn it off, prod Ivy into getting dressed, drag both girls upstairs, read to Ivy, threaten her with a fate worse than death if she dares move off her bed or makes noise, put Clara down

And Wait:

sit at computer standing guard until Ivy actually falls asleep or she will know that I left the house and pop out of bed and run around, wonder how on earth it got to be quarter to three, plan for my next hurry up session, and write a blog post…

Ivy’s New Job

Last week our sheep grew bored with things around here and six of them went on a little walkabout. A very nice farmer up the road (two miles up the road) found them and helped to get them back. Since then we’ve been beefing up fences and keeping a closer eye on them.

To be totally correct Ivy has been keeping a closer eye on them. Her new job is to check to make sure the sheep are still here. The first few days every hour or so I would ask if the sheep were still here and she would go running out the door to check. Now I don’t even have to say anything, she just wanders over to the gate and looks for sheep.   In addition to that she usually stays on the gate contentedly visiting with the sheep for a long time before coming back with her report. Ivy’s new job makes me happy becuase it gets Ivy out of the house doing something by herself. Fortunately Ivy likes her new job too. It is important to know if your sheep are where you left them and Ivy feels special that she’s been given an important job.  Perhaps it makes the sheep happy too, I’m not sure. Do they like bubbles?

Good Mousers Needed!

Yesterday I watched a mouse run across the kitchen floor right in front of Clara and our cat Fiona then dash under the dishwasher to safety. Only Clara tried to catch it. I already wrote about how our cat Henry (above in orange) was the worlds worst mouser but Fiona(black) is right up there with him. Henry was awful because he could catch mice, never did anything to them and would eventually let them go. Fiona just seems to be lacking any hunting instinct whatsoever.  I have never, ever, seen her with a mouse. And believe me, in our house, there are plenty of mousing opportunities.  The worst performance by Fiona was about two years ago on a dark and stormy night. OK probably it wasn’t dark and stormy. In fact I really have no idea what it was doing outside, I’m not even sure of the season but I suspect it was winter since that’s when the mice really invade. Whatever was going on outside, inside John and I were both in the kitchen when a mouse ran across the counter and hid behind all our liquor bottles in the corner.

– A note on “all our liquor bottles in the corner“:

We used to keep these all in the pantry before a home improvement disease took over our house.  Now our pantry has no shelves, and things are stacked on the floor or kept in Rubbermaid bins, not a good place for glass bottles so the bottles were relocated to the counter. Now, when I use the word ALL it seems like we are crazy party animals with a full bar but they are actually a strange collection of mostly empty bottles that are  a minimum of 4 years old collecting dust next to one bottle of whiskey. There is no dust on the whiskey.

John and I closed in on the mouse and then tried to figure out what to do. I thought, ” We’ll get the cat, brilliant!” (this was clearly before I knew she was one of the two worst mousers in the world) I ran and got Fiona and put her on the counter next to the bottles.  Then while I tried to keep Fiona focused John slowly started removing bottles.  When we were down to just three or four in the corner (we don’t even drink them I swear they just show up and never leave!) the mouse poked it’s head out and Fiona saw it. “AH HA she’s got it!” we thought, but we were wrong. Fiona went up and tentatively poked her paw behind the bottles.  The mouse stuck it’s head out the other side, Fiona never noticed. John put on an oven mitt (we were in the kitchen after all) and poked the mouse, the mouse ran and stuck it’s head out by Fiona, she poked it back to John…. You get the idea? After this went on for many minutes (while I helpfully laughed in the background) John brought Storm into help. Now Storm is a hunting dog, she has hunting instinct, she is even what is known as a versatile hunting dog, but she is NOT a good counter top mouser. The mouse went back to hiding behind the bottles. Finally John ripped all the bottles out and smashed the mouse with his oven mitt clad fist.

Every now and then John talks about getting another cat. My new criteria is that it has to be a better mouser than he is!

Don’t Forget to Pack Your Straw!

This past weekend we went up to the Superior area for a long weekend full of: train rides, birthdays, fathers day, swimming, fishing, boating and friends.

We’d love to visit the area more often except for the tiny problem of the 6 hour drive. And that is only the driving.  Peeing, eating, diaper changes, leg stretching, and waiting out a large thunderstorm with lots of tornadoes that just happens to be hanging out over the road you need to follow to get home, are all extra.  Once we added those in our drive home was about nine hours!

Now before someone says, how its not so bad , “just jump in the car pop a movie in and you’ll be set,” lets just set something straight.

We do not have a TV in our home.

We do not have a DVD player or anything like it in our car.

It is likely to stay that way indefinitely.

I like to think this is a good thing.  I might be wrong, it may be unreasonable, but I’ve been known to cling stubbornly to unreasonable ideas before. I have kept up my own personal ban of the Harry Potter movies for many years now, and lived most of my life in a TV-less environment.  I think I can swing keeping movies out of my vehicles.

For now both of our girls are very good in the car, and really the only problem is I keep forgetting to pack my earplugs…

Have I ever mentioned my oldest daughter’s ability to talk?

Have I mentioned that she LOVES the captive audience a car creates?

So, knowing that we had a big car ride, and that if a certain someone uttered the phrases “What?” or “What kind of…” or “Hold it on it’s BACK Mom!”  too many times I’d lose the last of the sanity I had remaining after a frantic day of packing, I tried to be well prepared.

We  had a bag of toys:

We had a pile of books:

And then we had the most sought after item, the most played with item, the item that literally kept Ivy busy for two hours, the item that made all the rest of the things I brought along pale in comparison….

the straw.

Who needs a princess movie when you can play the trumpet with a McDonald’s straw?

Why I Love Digital Cameras

I have sort of a love hate relationship with my digital camera. For instance I hate the flash, but I love the ability to take 5 million pictures and then delete as many as necessary.

Then as an added bonus even when none of the pictures are really awesome you still get something that tells a nice little story like this:

Ivy waters Clara and James

Some for you…

…and some for you…

…and some for me…

…wait who said you get more?

…more for me…

…some for you, Clara where are you going?

MOM! Ivy won’t share!

Hey Mama, guess what!?! I was drinking with the girls today!

Hooray for digital cameras!

The Books Behind the Willows

Starting this blog kicked off a  series of events and feelings that went like this:

-“I have a blog, I’m so embarrassed.”

-“I have a blog, but I think it’s kind of fun.”

-“I have a blog and people actually read it, cool!”

-“I have a blog and the format is annoying me.”

-“Sarah thanks for helping me get a new cooler blog!”

-“I love my new cooler blog!”

-“I have a blog and you should read it!”

-“I’m having so much fun I think I should start another!”

And so I started The Books Behind the Willows. I have never actually come out and mentioned it because it is a site of book reviews. Since I have only reviewed books that I have read since starting it it seemed foolish to say “OO OOO look at my new blog… with one lame book review on it”. But now I have thirteen reviews that I think are not so lame, so now I’m saying “OOO OOO look at my new(ish) blog!”

It just so happened that today’s post morphed into a bit of an explanation of why I write what I write in the reviews which made me think this might be a  good opportunity to formally introduce it. So, say hello to The Books Behind the Willows.  You can reach it by either clicking on my nicely highlighted links here or on the text at the top of the page. There you will find books I have read in the last two months and a few children’s books as well. I’m always looking for reading suggestions for myself and the girls and so would love comments with any suggestions or with your thoughts on any of the books!

Ivy and I, July '07

Stay tuned, the last event in my series of thoughts was like this…

“If two is good three is better right?”