So I mowed the lawn tonight. As in, went outside a half hour before the sun set and wasn't done until a half hour after it went down. Now, my subdivision is in a township, so I don't think I have to worry about sound ordinances, but I do have a question about the politeness of mowing at night. I was thinking, as I mowed near the bedroom of one of our next door neighbor's children (I think, I've never been inside), that maybe some people don't like it when their neighbors mow after 'bedtime.'
Most of the people I talk to put their kids to bed around 8 or 8:30. Is it irritating to have a mower running nearby? We have the neighbors next door who have 3 small girls and ones across the street who have 2 small children, and next to them is a house with a brand new baby. So what do you think? Do you hate it when people near you run their mowers when your kid is sleeping? Are houses nowadays far enough from each other or well enough made that they probably didn't hear me?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Sheesh
I've been trying to train for the Riverbank Run, a local 25K race. I've been training since early December and I've run in 30 mph wind gusts, ice, 2-foot-high drifts (had to change course once cause the road I was going to run on was completely drifted over. I would have had to wade in snow up to my knees to go that way), in rain and gotten sunburned. I thought I had this under the belt. I ran my 14 miles (my longest scheduled run) and felt confident I could finish the job.
Well, this cold had other plans. It started as a sore throat and some congestion in my head. Well, so far the sore throat left but the congestion settled into my lungs and promptly became Bronchitis. I missed last weeks 12 mile run, plus 2 5 miles runs during this week. Today I meant to make up the 12 mile run but by 9 miles I couldn't breathe. I called my hubby to come get me, but felt considerably better after a walk, so I called him back and said I'd get back on my own power, whether walking or running. So I ended up walking around .8 miles and only covering 11.8 miles.
We'll be seeing how this week goes. All I can say is if I'm still this congested in 2 weeks, I will either be running only 10K that day, or I will be finishing in well over the 3 1/2 hour cut off time.
Well, this cold had other plans. It started as a sore throat and some congestion in my head. Well, so far the sore throat left but the congestion settled into my lungs and promptly became Bronchitis. I missed last weeks 12 mile run, plus 2 5 miles runs during this week. Today I meant to make up the 12 mile run but by 9 miles I couldn't breathe. I called my hubby to come get me, but felt considerably better after a walk, so I called him back and said I'd get back on my own power, whether walking or running. So I ended up walking around .8 miles and only covering 11.8 miles.
We'll be seeing how this week goes. All I can say is if I'm still this congested in 2 weeks, I will either be running only 10K that day, or I will be finishing in well over the 3 1/2 hour cut off time.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Just some stuff
Every day I come to my Blogger homepage and see all the posts from these people who so faithfully blog and I see my '96 posts' that hasn't moved since FEBRUARY and I feel guilty. Well, hopefully no more. I'm just going to hit 'new post' along with all those other blogs I'm opening and leave that tab open (gotta love Google Chrome) until something to write about comes to me. Hope I'm not boring. Not that that's stopped me in the past.
S got accepted into an accelerated learning program at her school. She's excited and her parents are trying not to burst with pride about it. This is just a little leak, not a bursting. ;) I'm pretty excited about it too. She's also on a softball team again this year. This may be her most personally challenging year yet. She has only 9 teammates, and of the 10 on her team 2 of them have never played softball before. I was on a team like that at around the same age and while I found it discouraging then, I chuckle about it now. Hope she can learn from it.
A was just told she's more than a grade level ahead in her reading. She's pretty proud and we've already had a few lessons about not bragging about yourself! Tough to learn in Kindergarten. I'm so glad she's also inherited a love for reading. She's scheduled for some dance stuff this summer, but has already expressed desire to play softball next year. It'll be interesting to see which she like better after getting a taste of both. I, as her mom, feel like I know which she'd be naturally better, and will have to practice biting my tongue so she can sample what she wants to.
We try to limit them to one thing at a time (we've had some overlap that can't be helped), so she will have to make a choice! It's so interesting to observe kids growth. I never knew I'd appreciate so much the birds'-eye- view I get on their lives as they start to make their own decisions and grow up.
C is 'preschooling' with me, as she is very proud to proclaim when she's asked if she's in school. We've worked on some upper and lower case letters, numbers, shapes... Yesterday she counted by twos all the way to 12, and we have a sheet of words from when A started kindergarten. They're words that kindergarteners should know at the beginning of the school year, and C knows at least 3/4ths of them on sight and sounds out the rest. She's going to take her first dance classes this summer, too. I (again speaking as mommy and thus the one who thinks she knows her kids inside and out), think she's taking it because A did and she thinks that's just what you do when you're that age, but I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised and have a virtuoso on my hands. :)
So there we are. All caught up.
S got accepted into an accelerated learning program at her school. She's excited and her parents are trying not to burst with pride about it. This is just a little leak, not a bursting. ;) I'm pretty excited about it too. She's also on a softball team again this year. This may be her most personally challenging year yet. She has only 9 teammates, and of the 10 on her team 2 of them have never played softball before. I was on a team like that at around the same age and while I found it discouraging then, I chuckle about it now. Hope she can learn from it.
S's class meeting one of our state congressmen. He just happened to be there and volunteered to take us all down on the floor. It was pretty cool.
Playing a game in Kindergarten
We try to limit them to one thing at a time (we've had some overlap that can't be helped), so she will have to make a choice! It's so interesting to observe kids growth. I never knew I'd appreciate so much the birds'-eye- view I get on their lives as they start to make their own decisions and grow up.
C is 'preschooling' with me, as she is very proud to proclaim when she's asked if she's in school. We've worked on some upper and lower case letters, numbers, shapes... Yesterday she counted by twos all the way to 12, and we have a sheet of words from when A started kindergarten. They're words that kindergarteners should know at the beginning of the school year, and C knows at least 3/4ths of them on sight and sounds out the rest. She's going to take her first dance classes this summer, too. I (again speaking as mommy and thus the one who thinks she knows her kids inside and out), think she's taking it because A did and she thinks that's just what you do when you're that age, but I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised and have a virtuoso on my hands. :)
Being cheesy for the camera.
So there we are. All caught up.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
SNOW!
It definitely fell in capital letters around here last week. It took local schools 2 days to clear roads and sidewalks enough to be able to get kids to school. Many people were stuck at home due to drifted in roads (like my hubby and at least one of my uncles), or because their workplace had no power (like my dad).
Front-of-the-garage drift compared to hubby's car.
After a bit of digging. This stuff was packed solid!
And boy did the kids have fun playing in it!
Shoveled drift taller than C.
This is the view out of our front door when we woke up that morning. That's a 3 + foot drift!
Front-of-the-garage drift compared to hubby's car.
And boy did the kids have fun playing in it!
End of our driveway. That's how drifted the roads were.
Mailbox. Now that the plows have been by, you can ONLY see the box part. The pole has disappeared entirely.
Shoveled drift taller than C.
Finally got all dug out. It wasn't as bad as some got, thank goodness we were too far north to get the freezing rain. Ice is far harder to drive in than snow. But this was such fun for the kids! The yard looks messy but played-in, which is such a good look.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Strengths and Weaknesses
I'm the first to admit that patience and creativity in parenting do not come easily to me. I struggle with the prospect of vacations, 4-day school weeks, and especially spontaneous days off such as snow days. I have to force myself to come up with activities for everyone on such days. Every day I find myself having to take deep breaths not to get impatient with their innocent, childish actions.
I read a blog of a woman who puts me to shame in this department. If heaven were based on our parenting abilities, she would have a seat at Christ's right hand, and I would be staring through the pearly gates. She is creative, patient, doesn't mind the little messes, takes 5 (5!) children with her to Target and the Post Office and inside banks (I don't even take my 1 kid inside banks with me if I can get everything done at the ATM). She has no problem with them jumping on her furniture and chuckles when they write on the kitchen table. Mommyhood comes more than naturally to her, she's a genius.
However. She is very transparent and also blogs about her marriage struggles. She is brutally honest about the fact that she and her husband have more than their fair share of arguments, and that she has left the house occasionally to escape the stress. Humbly, this is not an area my husband and I struggle with. We do get along well. He has stuck with me through, literally, sickness and health, rich and poor, in good times and in bad.
I won't go into it all at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, but marriage is the area in my life that I have some strength. I don't know why God has blessed us in that area, but he has and I feel blessed. And I know this other mother would see it that way and be happy for me, just as I try to be happy for her that she is so blessed in the parenting department.
For her, she has to work on learning to love and submit to her husband daily. For me, my weekly, daily, hourly lesson is patience and loving my kids right where they are. Seems odd for a mom to say, huh? But there it is. We all have these weaknesses, right? I hope I'm not alone in this.
I read a blog of a woman who puts me to shame in this department. If heaven were based on our parenting abilities, she would have a seat at Christ's right hand, and I would be staring through the pearly gates. She is creative, patient, doesn't mind the little messes, takes 5 (5!) children with her to Target and the Post Office and inside banks (I don't even take my 1 kid inside banks with me if I can get everything done at the ATM). She has no problem with them jumping on her furniture and chuckles when they write on the kitchen table. Mommyhood comes more than naturally to her, she's a genius.
However. She is very transparent and also blogs about her marriage struggles. She is brutally honest about the fact that she and her husband have more than their fair share of arguments, and that she has left the house occasionally to escape the stress. Humbly, this is not an area my husband and I struggle with. We do get along well. He has stuck with me through, literally, sickness and health, rich and poor, in good times and in bad.
I won't go into it all at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, but marriage is the area in my life that I have some strength. I don't know why God has blessed us in that area, but he has and I feel blessed. And I know this other mother would see it that way and be happy for me, just as I try to be happy for her that she is so blessed in the parenting department.
For her, she has to work on learning to love and submit to her husband daily. For me, my weekly, daily, hourly lesson is patience and loving my kids right where they are. Seems odd for a mom to say, huh? But there it is. We all have these weaknesses, right? I hope I'm not alone in this.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tentative
Recently my hubby lost his job in a surprising, un-foreseen, over all very, I guess, ODD turn of events. He does have a new job already again, so we are okay, just confused about the whole series of events.
We were talking about it just a couple nights ago. A thought struck me as we talked. We have been through a lot. I don't delude myself that we have the most tragic lives ever, but I have to admit we have been through a lot in our lives.
Anyway, my thought went something like this. Everything that has gone on, especially the surprising, unexpected nature of everything, has made me a bit tentative about stepping into the future. With this whole job thing I've had to consciously take my thoughts and hand them over to God. I've had to make myself think about the fact that God has us in his hands and he is bringing us to where he wants us to be.
But even as I think these things, I am nervous. I look ahead and I think, wow. Look at all he's allowed to happen in our lives thus far. What's he going to allow to happen in the future? And it kinda scares me. I realize that doesn't fit neatly into the 'I trust God' mold that we Christians are all supposed to have. I'm supposed to say I trust him in all this and I'm happy to go wherever he leads. But sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I just want to be able to stay in one place, going about my business, living comfortably where we are.
I know we'll look back and think about how blessed we are to have lived this life. And I already see a lot of beauty in what God has brought us through. We have three gorgeous girls, and a strong, happy marriage. I hope we have touched some people along the way. But where I stand now, I am very tentative about looking into the future. It seems to have been one surprise after another, with scarcely a year in there since I turned 17 that didn't have something scary or unfortunate happen in it. We have a running list! :D It's made me a bit gun-shy. Can you blame me? Am I being melodramatic?
We were talking about it just a couple nights ago. A thought struck me as we talked. We have been through a lot. I don't delude myself that we have the most tragic lives ever, but I have to admit we have been through a lot in our lives.
Anyway, my thought went something like this. Everything that has gone on, especially the surprising, unexpected nature of everything, has made me a bit tentative about stepping into the future. With this whole job thing I've had to consciously take my thoughts and hand them over to God. I've had to make myself think about the fact that God has us in his hands and he is bringing us to where he wants us to be.
But even as I think these things, I am nervous. I look ahead and I think, wow. Look at all he's allowed to happen in our lives thus far. What's he going to allow to happen in the future? And it kinda scares me. I realize that doesn't fit neatly into the 'I trust God' mold that we Christians are all supposed to have. I'm supposed to say I trust him in all this and I'm happy to go wherever he leads. But sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I just want to be able to stay in one place, going about my business, living comfortably where we are.
I know we'll look back and think about how blessed we are to have lived this life. And I already see a lot of beauty in what God has brought us through. We have three gorgeous girls, and a strong, happy marriage. I hope we have touched some people along the way. But where I stand now, I am very tentative about looking into the future. It seems to have been one surprise after another, with scarcely a year in there since I turned 17 that didn't have something scary or unfortunate happen in it. We have a running list! :D It's made me a bit gun-shy. Can you blame me? Am I being melodramatic?
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