Success!

The hubby came running with me today. He wasn't working today, so he was glad to come along. We got back home well before he leaves for work normally anyway, so we'll see if he tags along again. I think he enjoyed it. He's been surprising lately: reading Men's Health magazine, volunteering to cook dinner on the nights he's home at dinnertime. It's fantastic. A helpful man who is finally getting interested in taking good care of himself. He's never been a plump fellow, and still isn't, but his suit didn't fit for my grandma's funeral and I don't think he liked that. Plus, I think he sees how much better my mood is when I've been taking care of myself. I'm not sure what it is, but I like it.

Because we've been pictureless lately, here are some belated pictures of our silly underwater bathroom. We have three bathrooms in the new house, one more than the old house. This is the basement bathroom, which is across the hall from my two oldest girls' bedrooms. Seems like a great place for a fun theme to me. (Sorry for the sideways pics. Didn't have time to fix them today.)


The kids and I all smeared the white walls with whatever paint we had on hand and thought would make a nice water color.


Then, a couple weeks later, we all grabbed our smaller brushes and painted whatever "under the sea" things we liked. The whole family jumped in, all four kids and the hubby and I.






The woodwork and floor required a real cleanup, but it was worth it. Fun! We don't have pictures of it here, but I painted some really tall (and some not so tall) sea plants to fill in some of the space between other things.

In any case, it's a cheerful place to be (and pee.) Ha. :p

Still running, still knitting.

Still running. :) I'm doing couch-to-5K (again.) I made it to week 3 the last time. I'm on week 2 now. I'm definitely enjoying it more this time. I haven't managed to drag the hubby out with me yet. I didn't even get out on Friday, afflicted with 2 sick children. (They're fine now. Minor stomach bug.) Thanks, Stefaneener for the tip about the *ahem* intimate lives of couples who exercise together. That should hold some sway with the hormonally ravaged man. Oh, yeah only him. No one else. ;) I know he can't resist touching my back when I tell him to after I work out, even though he should know by now that I just want to gross him out with the sweat. (Sorry, was that TMI?) Anyway, he's either really dumb or unable to resist. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and go with the one that makes me sound more desirable.

Knitting! Yes, I have been. I don't think I mentioned that I designed a sock for the Twist On Your Toes sock of the month club in July. They're the Bamboo Lace socks. I have to say I rather like them. :) Weird to be called a designer, though.

I was plagued by some kind of yarn-munching monster for a while there. (No, not moths! Knock on cedar.) I was only knitting two projects and I ran out of yarn on both. Annoying! One was a towel I was knitting on the fly (no pattern.) Totally my fault that I ran out. I knew I was going to, but I erroneously thought that yellow dishcloth cotton would not be difficult to procure. It took me weeks to find some! When I finally found some, I bought three more balls even though I thought I would only need two. Turns out I just needed slightly less than one. Oh well. The towel is now gracing my bathroom. :) The other project was a shawl. I should have had plenty of yarn, but halfway through the border, I ran out. It's particularly annoying because I don't need all that much more, but it only comes in a monstrous 1375 yd skein. Of course I bought the one I used out-of-town a couple years ago. Ugh. It's in timeout until I decide to suck it up and buy another skein. What will I do with all the leftover Skacel Merino Lace, color 91? :p

OK, enough whining. I have been having fun, too. I'm knitting socks for me, my 11 yo daughter, and a Jeanie shawl for fun. Up next are socks for the other three kids. We'll see how long I can hold off the green sweater yarn that's calling to me from across the room. "Knit me! Knit me!" Silly yarn. It doesn't have to act so desperate.

Enough rambling for now! It's cooling down here in Kansas. Crisp leaves, sweater weather, and lit fireplaces are around the corner.

Am I a runner?

First off, thanks to everyone for the condolences on my grandma's death. She was a great lady. The services were so nice, and the priest knew her very well. He gave a great eulogy during the homily. Afterward, Saturday, many of us went back to my parents' house and stayed until bedtime. It was great to catch up with family we don't have unstructured time with very often. Turns out my cousin's husband is some kind of board game aficionado. He was like the cruise director for anyone he could rope into playing. I discovered that if you sat at the table, even just to see what was going on, you were in the game. No backing out! You were learning the rules to obscure board games no matter how little brain power you had at that moment. We asked if he's busy Fridays (when we have family dinner) because it was a lot of unexpected fun.

Now about running . . . I've been doing it. Yesterday I had the first run of my life that I can genuinely say I enjoyed while I was running. In my very short, very sporadic running life, I have only ever enjoyed it when it was done. You know, like, "Hey! I did it! I did something very unpleasant that is good for me!" But yesterday I caught myself smiling instead of grimacing. I found a comfortable pace. I looked at the clouds that were spitting rain on me and saw how pretty they were. I was even friendly to the barking dogs running along the other side of fences.

I'm not even too sore today. I can feel that I did it in that good "my muscles worked" way, not in that "I don't think I can stand" way. I'm dragging my husband out with me in the morning. I convinced him that it will be like a date. Heh heh heh.

Does this mean I'm a runner? Only time will tell, but I just may be after all.

My grandma died yesterday afternoon.

She'd had a stroke 2 years ago and had various health problems since then, but she was doing OK, despite her inability to speak. She was in assisted living and I saw her at least once a week, unless she was in the hospital. Monday night, she started breathing shallowly. They took her to the hospital and did some tests that indicated she had a blockage in her aorta. No way to operate, and even if they could, it would be prolonging the inevitable. She slept all day yesterday and died peacefully with her four children surrounding her.

I'm really sad, even though I know she's with my grandpa now. She'd missed him terribly since his death 10 years ago.

If you're the praying sort, please say one for the soul of my grandma (and godmother.) She was a lovely woman and I loved her.

What Disney Princess are you?

Belle You see past the bad things in people. You also don't settle for someone who is below your standards. You care about your education and you love your family. It takes a lot to win your heart, but once someone does they can count on you to be loyal.

How do you compare? Take this test! | Tests from Testriffic

I'm not so into Disney, but I thought this was a fun quiz. Besides, I knew the result before I ever took the test. Belle really is the least princessy of the princesses. Not such a silly girl.

I've been helping my mom clean out my grandma's house a lot lately. It's a lot of work, but I have come home with some treasures. We have also found a lot of trash. Literally trash. I mean, empty plastic bags, old pill bottles, random stacks of crumpled tissue paper. The house looked like it was in good shape (it's a beautiful old house), but you look a little deeper and it needed a lot of organization. It's SOOoo much emptier than it was, but there's still a long way to go. I don't know what the plan is for getting rid of the last things no one wants. The house needs to be sold to someone who will love it and take care of it. It's a historic home that has been completely restored. It's been 2 years since grandma had her stroke and moved to assisted living. The house needs a family again. It will be sad to see it go, but it will be good to have someone in there taking care of it the way it should be.

These crack me up.

McCain and Obama paper dolls. I got the heads-up on these from my regular Dover books e-mail. What fun we could have with these! Heeeee.

Barack Obama Paper Doll Website
http://www.obamapaperdoll.com

John McCain Paper Doll Website
http://www.mccainpaperdoll.com

Mosaic Meme

The kids go back to school Thursday. Everyone is excited. M (11) is trying to go down there every day anyway just to open her locker and walk back home. Nutty kid. The schools are at the end of our street. It will be nice to be so close. Registering them last week was the nicest school registration experience I've ever had. Everyone was so nice and helpful. They seemed genuinely happy to be there. The school facilities are great, too. It's wonderful to have school be such a positive place!

I don't know that I'll be blogging more once they're back to school, but I will finally have the time to go to the grocery store by myself and work out without having people interrupt me 18 times in an hour. In the meantime, here's a fun meme to tide you over.





Here's the meme:
Type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr search. Choose your favorite image from the first page, then copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

The questions:
1. What is your first name? (Lara)
2. What is your favorite food? (lasagne)
3. What high school did you attend? (Kapaun Mt. Carmel, had to drop the Mt. Carmel to get results)
4. What is your favorite color? (blue)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (no big ones, but I went with Milo Ventimiglia)
6. Favorite drink? (Diet Coke, yes I know it's evil)
7. Dream vacation? (New Zealand)
8. Favorite dessert? (chocolate cake)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (artist, still figuring out what that means)
10. What do you love most in life? (my family)
11. One word to describe you. (creative)
12. Your Flickr name. (bzzlarabzz, had to go with bzz)